Proceedings of the Nepali Congress Mahasamiti meet under
Nepal’s Westminster system
By Bihari Krishna Shrestha
NEPALI CONGRESS IN CRISIS
Born in the decade of the forties of the last century through the merger of many like-minded smaller entities in exile in India, the Nepali Congress Party has been at the forefront of the 1951 revolution that toppled the century-old Rana rule. While they also claim that they played a leadership role in other agitations like the 1990 ouster of the king-led party-less Panchayat system and the 2006 Maoist-led revolution that eventually led to the inception of republican order in the country, we all know that the Panchayat system would have survived the so-called revolution backstopped by the Indian blockade, had King Birendra agreed to Bhutanize Nepal and that this disappointment of predatory India had laid the groundwork for the launch of Maoists’ bloody campaign from India’s heartland, Noida, eventually leading to the end of monarchy in Nepal.
While the Nepali Congress always presented itself as Nepal’s GOP, it has increasing difficulty disowning its role of acting as a conveyor belt for India’s predatory design in Nepal.
As if to help underscore the pitiable position of NC in Nepali politics, a recent article in India’s English daily, the Pioneer, carried an article by Gen Ashok Mehta, equating PM Prachanda as India’s preferred horse to back in Nepal and NC’s chair, Sher Bahadur Deuba as another one “in the stable”. The two “Nepali leaders” are clearly facing considerable unease at being unable to contest that demeaning analogy. The NC Wallas too are clearly fully aware of this humiliation, but no comment on this crisis of identity that undercuts their claim as Nepal’s GOP.
NOTHING ABOUT SOCIAL DEMOCRACY
There is more to NC’s crisis. The party has always maintained that ideologically, they are social democrats, i.e. members of a party that is given to inclusive development, social justice and democracy. The party’s constitution requires their national conventions to alternatively deliberate on its “constitution” and its “policies”. The recently held 4-day Mahasamiti meeting–a massive deliberative body of over two thousand delegates from all over the country–was billed as Niti or Policy convention.
However, not a word about stagnating development in the country, or continued deprivation of the vast masses of poor, the alarming lack of employment opportunities and the massive exodus of our precious workforce, pitiable and worsening health and education services, nor about democratic deficit and widespread corruptibility of politics and bureaucracy was pronounced by anybody in that meet, neither the central leaders nor those who came from the hinterlands.
The entire time was consumed by only one issue that had polarized the NC leadership at the centre: Whether to go for a pre-election alliance and seat sharing with the Maoists. While President Deuba was nonnegotiable about the imperative of such alliance for winning elections, one of the two NC general secretaries, Gagan Thapa–who is a declared PM aspirant himself and dedicated to dislodging Deuba from his high perch–took the diametrically opposite position that such unholy alliance must never be entered into. The NC must face the election exclusively on its own merit and strength.
The last general election was fought under an alliance of about half a dozen parties, the NC and the Maoist Centre being the lead ones. The seat-sharing plan agreed upon by them required that in the constituency allocated to the Maoists, there would be no NC candidate and that the NC voters were required to cast their ballots in favour of the Maoists, while the Maoist voters too voted for the NC candidate in NC-allocated constituencies.
It was claimed that it was because of such a quid pro quo arrangement that the NC was returned as the biggest party in the current parliament.
Under this alliance, MC’s Prachanda is currently the PM, and NC’s Deuba is to succeed him and become Nepal’s prime minister for the sixth time a couple of years down the road. So, Deuba would say and do nothing that would likely jeopardize it, for fear that given the numbers in parliament, Prachanda could easily strike such a deal with opposition UML and deny Deuba that coveted chance.
MAHASAMITI TOO SAID AS MUCH: “WE ARE THE PARTY OF THE CORRUPT”
This issue became so important in Nepal’s foremost party, the NC, for purely mundane reasons that not only went on to polarize and emasculate the Mahasamiti jamboree but also exposed its propensity to side with the corrupt leadership at the centre.
For General Secretary Thapa such a stand was essential for him to be seen as a possible successor to President Deuba. In his bid to build his support base at the grassroots, he had lately been making rounds of the country.
Despite this camaraderie of convenience between Deuba and Prachanda, the fact remains that the NC cadres at the base have been viscerally opposed to the idea of casting their votes to the Maoist candidates because the Maoists have the blood of thousands of NC cadres on their hand whom they had slaughtered as class enemy during their decade-long campaign of terror and bloodletting. Therefore, it made strategic sense for Thapa to be seen as assiduously championing their cause.
DEUBA’S SUBTERFUGE UNDERCUT THAPA AND PARTY CADRES AND EXPOSED MAHASAMITI PROCLIVITY TO SIDE WITH THE CORRUPT
At the face of it, it seemed Deuba finally relented, and general secretary Thapa was allowed to present his paper and the point to the thunderous applause of the Mahasamiti participants. All indications were that Thapa was vindicated and they fully endorsed his stand.
But that jubilation and sense of vindication did not last long. Wily Deuba and his coterie unleashed their own subterfuge to undo Thapa by getting selected Mahasamiti members themselves to utter their own invective against Thapa as well as another general secretary, Biswo Prakash Sharma, who had his own axe to grind too against Dueba’s perpetuity at the helm. He too was propounding term limits for PMs, ministers, etc, that would have denied Deuba the opportunity to succeed Prachanda as PM. He too had received thunderous applause when he presented this seemingly novel and ground-breaking idea.
The Deuba coterie apparently went into overdrive and sent SMS messages to their selected Mahasamiti confidantes to vehemently oppose both of these ideas in the meetings of their sub-groups. The same members who had earlier heartily welcomed Thapa and Shama’s proposals were taking a stand one after another to inveigh against them and their proposals.
Finally, the Mahasamiti of local NC leaders from all across the country were unable to deliver any judgment of their own. Instead, as insinuated by the Deuba conspirators, the Mahasamiti went for its own emasculation by adopting only one resolution that authorized the party’s Central Committee to “finalize its decision by taking into account all the opinions expressed during the meet”. Deuba enjoys an overwhelming majority in that Central Committee.
It was not only Love’s labour lost for Thapa and Sharma but also the abhorrent denial of the wishes of the grassroots cadres that the Mahasaamiti members were theoretically supposed to represent. They indeed did so for a while but only until that fatal SMS was issued.
The Deuba-Prachanda camaraderie has been infamous for all the wrong reasons. Briefly put, Deuba, given the number of NC berths in the Prachanda cabinet, remains more or less the de facto PM and has, for instance, used Prachanda to transfer a highly professional policeman, SSP Manoj KC away from the CBI to prevent any possible investigation of his wife, Arzu Deuba, who, as per the media reporting, had received crores in illicit payment from the scammers in the Fake Bhutanese Refugee plot. Due to SSP KC’s undaunted investigation of the scam, many former ministers and high officials are cooling their heels in judicial custody for the same offence of which Mrs Deuba too stands accused.
The whole country knows about it as do the Mahasamiti fellows. By giving in to Deuba’s design, the NC’s massive deliberative body, the Mahasamiti too unequivocally announced that they have no problems siding with the corrupt under our kind of Westminster democracy.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect People’s Review’s editorial stance.
Login to add a comment