New Delhi: Nepali Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal will make a statement on his remarks that a Nepal-based Indian businessman had lobbied in India’s power corridors to get him the top job in the Nepal parliament, after the opposition disrupted parliamentary proceedings for the second day.On Monday, July 3, Dahal was invited to launch a book called, Roads to the Valley: The Legacy of Sardar Pritam Singh in Nepal, about a trucking entrepreneur who had close links with the Nepal political leadership.In his speech, Dahal acknowledged that Singh had made repeated efforts to make him the premier.“He (Singh) had once made efforts to make me the prime minister,” Dahal said, as quoted by The Kathmandu Post. “He reached Delhi several times and held multiple rounds of talks with political leaders in Kathmandu to make me the prime minister.”His remarks created an uproar with the opposition leaders, and even ruling coalition leaders, claiming disquiet at the insinuation that New Delhi decides on who will become Nepal’s prime minister.With both chambers of parliament dysfunctional, the ruling coalition convened an urgent meeting on Thursday, July 6.After the meeting, Nepali media quoted the CPN (Maoist Centre)’s chief whip, Hitraj Pandey, as saying that an agreement was reached that Prime Minister Dahal would make a clarification in parliament. They also rejected calls for Dahal’s resignation.PTI quoted CPN-Maoist Centre secretary Ganesh Shah as saying that Prime Minister Dahal didn’t intend to indicate that India intervened in Nepal’s domestic politics, “but he should have used political and diplomatic words in a cautious manner while speaking about such a sensitive issue”.Also read: India in South Asia: ‘Vishwaguru’ Slogans Meet Regional RealitiesFor the last two days, the House of Representatives and the National Assembly witnessed the principal opposition, Communist Party of Nepal-(Unified Marxist-Leninist) (CPN-UML), as well as the Rastriya Swatantra Party and Rastriya Prajatantra Party, refusing to let routine work proceed as per schedule.They shouted slogans that said that a “prime minister appointed by New Delhi does not have the right to continue in the post.”After the Speaker allowed him to speak, CPN-UML lawmaker Raghuji Panta said that Nepal’s dignity and prestige had suffered due to Dahal’s off-the-cuff remarks. “Shouldn’t we turn to the Nepali people to make somebody the prime minister? Why should anybody go to New Delhi to make somebody the prime minister?” he wondered.“Is the prime minister’s post above the country’s pride, territorial integrity and dignity?” he wondered, as quoted by The Himalayan Times.At a programme organised by the party’s affiliated students’ association, Dahal said that his words had been distorted. He said that the opposition parties were using his words to find a way to scuttle the anti-loan shark legislation which had been tabled and was scheduled to have been discussed.“I wanted to show that Pritam Singh was not only interested in social service and transport business but also in politics and that he had lobbied with parties in Delhi as well as in Nepal to make him prime minister,” said Dahal.
