New Delhi : Of course, the Nepal Government is yet to officially announce the Prime Minister Prachanda’s visit to India. But Nepal Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal, also called ‘Prachanda’, said he will visit India soon.
The date of the visit are yet to be finalised. “Visiting a neighbouring country by the Prime Minister after assuming the position is a normal process,” media reports said, quoting Nepal government official.
“Internally we are always prepared for that,” the official said, also adding, “We are working towards finalising the date and detailed programmes as well as the agenda of the visit in coordination with our counterparts”. Prachanda had also paid official visits to India during his earlier tenures as the Prime Minister of Nepal. In July last year, he visited India at the invitation of BJP President JP Nadda.
“I will be visiting India soon,” Prachanda himself told senior editors on January 14 during his first interaction with selected journalists after winning the vote of confidence last week.
“The concerned embassies are making preparations for my visit,” he told the journalists at Baluwatar, the official residence of the Prime Minister, media reports claimed.
The 68-year-old Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist Centre leader Prachanda was sworn in as the Prime Minister for the third time on December 26, 2022 after he dramatically walked out of the pre-poll alliance led by the Nepali Congress and joined hands with Opposition leader KP Sharma Oli.
Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ last on January 10, won the vote of confidence in the House of Representatives.
Last month after Dahal took charge as PM, his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi said, “The unique relationship between India and Nepal is based on deep cultural connect & warm people-to-people ties”.
“I look forward to working together with you (in reference to Prachanda) to further strengthen this friendship,” PM Modi tweeted.
Notably, China too has congratulated Prachanda – a former guerilla leader – and other key leaders who would work in tandem with him. As the ‘third time’ Prime Minister, pressure will be on Prachanda to regain the trust of investors and business houses as well as boost production.
Analysts said Nepal’s $40 billion economy, emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic, needed the immediate attention of the new government. Inflation is at more than 8 per cent, the highest in six years. Prachanda also faces dwindling foreign exchange reserves, with an increasing dependence on imports of basic goods. Former finance minister of Nepal Yuba Raj Khatiwada, who worked under PM Oli, said Prachanda must focus on boosting manufacturing products such as cement for export.
India shares a border of over 1,850 km with five Indian states — Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim, West Bengal and Bihar. Once upon a time militant outfits from the northeast region had easy access to Nepal.
Land-locked Nepal relies heavily on India for the transportation of goods and services as it is only through India that Kathmandu gets access to the sea.
As things became clearer that Prachanda will be back in power with the support of pro-China K P Oli, a senior member of Prachanda’s Maoist Centre party Narayan Kaji Shreshtha had said: “We’ll maintain relationships of equi-proximity with both our neighbours — India and China”.
Prachanda had some years ago developed a friendly approach with Indian authorities as well. But this time, Prachanda will be dependent on CPN-UML leader Oli — a well pro-China leader under whose stint ties between India and Nepal came under some strain, especially in 2020.
Ties between the two countries came under severe strain after Kathmandu published a new political map that showed the three Indian territories — Limpiyadhura, Kalapani and Lipulekh — as part of Nepal.
“This artificial enlargement of claims is not based on historical fact or evidence and is not tenable,” the then MEA spokesman Anurag Srivastava had said in Delhi. In fact, the unexpected development of Prachanda emerging as the new PM was a surprise after the Nepali Congress-led five-party coalition could not arrive at a consensus on who would be the prime minister first.
Observers know that no contemporary Nepal PM or the Kathmandu Government can underestimate New Delhi’s roles in more ways than one. The India-Nepal Treaty of Peace and Friendship of 1950 form a basic foundation of special relations between the two countries.
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