By P.R. Pradhan
Prime Minister Pushpakamal Dahal returned home on Saturday, 3 June after concluding a four-day-long first foreign visit to India. The foreign ministries from Nepal and India have stated the PM’s India visit as an official one. However, in an editorial published in The Rising Nepal, government mouthpiece, the visit has been explained as a state visit.
Indian State Minister for External Affairs Meenakshi Lekhi received PM Dahal at the Indira Gandhi International Airport upon his arrival. No red carpet welcome was extended, neither, a buckeye flower was offered to the executive chief of the Nepal government.
News reports are silent on who sent off the Nepali PM upon his return.
If it was a state visit, normally, we could expect a joint communiqué at the end of the visit to be released by both governments. We didn’t see it. Surprisingly, we were even unable to see a joint statement to be issued at the end of the visit by both governments.
Moreover, PM Dahal didn’t meet the leaders of the opposition party of the country known as the largest democracy. Whether PM Dahal was reluctant the meeting with the opposition leaders or the Modi-led government denied the guest meeting with his opponents, is unknown to us.
Both the PMs explained a long list of achievements made by both countries in bilateral cooperation but except for the joint press conference, there is no black and white paper issued jointly on these achievements.
Overall, the visit of PM Dahal to India seemed like a visit of a chief minister of one Indian state to Delhi.
Swapping land Ajit Dhovel’s idea?
Prime Minister Pushpakamal Dahal informing the Nepali media about the bilateral talks between him and Indian PM Narendra Modi at a press conference on 2 June morning in Delhi, said that the Bangladesh model for resolving the border issue could be “swapping land”. He further elaborated that one option could be Nepal’s direct reach to Bangladesh against handing over the Kalapani territory to India.
PM Dahal had not taken consent from his partners in the ruling alliance in floating such an idea earlier to his visit to India. Moreover, this is a subject for developing a national consensus and amendment of the constitution as well.
How PM Dahal floated this plan, we speculate that Indian National Security advisor Ajit Dhovel, who called on PM Dahal one day earlier to the bilateral meeting between PM Dahal and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi at the hotel room where Dahal stayed, could have floated the idea of land swapping.
Dhovel, perhaps, planted this idea on PM Dahal as a trial balloon.
Later in Kathmandu, when the opposition parties made a hue and cry disrupting the Parliament meeting on 5 June, PM Dahal clarified that he didn’t mean to say handover of the Kalapani territory. He, however, remarked that the Indian PM had assured him of border dispute settlement. The question is can we trust such verbal assurance as no joint statement was issued on the visit?
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