On May 31, 2023, the Prime minister of Nepal, Pushpa Kamal Dahal (Prachanda), will come to India as part of a four-day visit during which India and Nepal will hold discussions on a few lingering issues and also to sign multiple deals.
On May 26, 2023, the Kathmandu Post said that Nepal and India would likely sign an energy pact and six agreements during the exchanges.
According to NP Saud, the foreign minister of Nepal, the agreements will cover agriculture cooperation and water. The prime ministerial visit has been in discussion for the past three months, with Prachanda himself discussing it. However, this did not generate a quick response from the Indian side, and officials merely indicating that such a visit would take place in the fullness of time.
As Pushpa Kamal Dahal prepares his visit to India, the “southern neighbour” maintained silence as fast-paced developments in Nepal remain the talk of the town. The air of caution surrounding Prachanda’s visit is partly due to volatile political conditions in Nepal, which witnessed two successive changes in the ruling coalition that came to power in December 2022 and has remained in several corruption scandals.
Prachanda’s government came to power in December 2022 in a dramatic coalition somersault, and after he dumped the Nepal Congress was joined by K.P Sharma Oli-led CPI-UML that helped him in becoming the prime minister for the third time since the end of monarchy in the Himalayan nation.
However, the leftist coalition broke in February due to a disagreement regarding the candidature of the post of President. Subsequently, Ram Chandra Poudel was elected as president with support from the Nepali Congress and the Communist Party of Maoist, to which Prachanda is affiliated.
Several controversies have hit the revival of the Nepalese Congress Maoist Centre Coalition in the last three months, which have drawn attention to the role of the post-monarchy power elite. The topmost in the list of embarrassing revelations is the scandal involving fake Bhutanese refugees who took shelter in the US during the past two decades.
An independent MP (Member of Parliament) in the Pratinidhi Sabha, Amresh Kumar Singh, made a forceful intervention in the House earlier this month and sought an investigation into this scam. This was followed by a demand to investigate the scam from Rabi Lamicchane, who is the leader of the Rashtriya Swatantra Party.
Rabi Lamicchane served briefly as the Home Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, had to resign on January 27, 2023, after the Supreme Court raised issues about his citizenship. Despite this allegation, he is a potent challenger to Prachanda as he possesses twenty seats of the MP under his command.
Apart from the shifting political stands, the Prachanda government has been in the news for a multi-billion rupees defence deal with China. Nepal has not made any official announcement about the arms deal, but Amresh Kumar Singh continues to argue that the deal has not been cancelled and is on track.
Against this backdrop, Prachanda may have to fall on his past exchanges with India to take forward the agenda for a possible visit beginning on May 31, 2023. Prachanda is the longest-serving Maoist leader in Nepal and has been a top post contender since the Maoists joined politics in November 2005. In August 2008, Prachanda became the prime minister for the first time, marking a decisive break from Nepal’s past.
Since then, he has remained a top-level player and served a second term as the PM during 2016-17, when he handled India-Nepal relations in the aftermath of the economic blockade posed by the agitating Madhesis of the Nepal plains.
Though India is yet to announce the visit, Nepal’s Ambassador to Delhi, Shankar P Sharma, called on the External Affairs Minister of India, S. Jaishankar, on May 25, 2023. “Both of us expressed our desire and commitment to further broaden and deepen our strong age-old multifaceted relationship in the days ahead,” said Sharma after the meeting concluded.
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