Pakistan, Bhutan and Nepal have been to the polls in recent months. India’s relations with Bangladesh have taken a new turn (and one for the better) with the resumption of two-way rain services. And India’s relations with Sri Lanka remain as complicated and critical as they have always been. As India tries to grow its influence, both political and economic, in the region, even as it tries to do the same thing at the global level, Mint
looks at the significant issues shaping and affecting its relations with its immediate neighbours. In the first part of the series, we look at Nepal.
New role: Maoist leader Prachanda addresses his first public meeting after the 10 April elections in Kathmandu on Monday.
India misread the 10 April elections in which the extreme Left-wing Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) won an unprecedented majority, and is now scrambling to recover its position of influence in the Himalayan kingdom.
According to media reports, at a victory rally on Saturday in Kirtipur, a small town just south of Kathmandu that has been home to Nepal’s Shah dynasty, Maoist leader Prachanda announced that the first meeting of the constituent assembly after the elections would declare Nepal a republic and abolish the country’s 240-year-old monarchy.
Television footage showed his face smeared with vermilion as he announced that the Maoists would lead the government.
Former rebels who waged a “people’s war” in which 13,000 people are said to have been killed, the Maoists look all set to rule the country after a largely peaceful election in which 67% of the population took part, according to Nepal’s election commission.
Royalty to republic: A file photo of royal guards exchanging duty at Narayanhiti Royal Palace in Kathmandu. Maoist leader Prachanda announced at a victory rally that the first meeting of the new constituent assembly would declare Nepal a republic and abolish the country’s 240-year-old monarchy. (Gopal Chitrakar / Reuters)
Former US president Jimmy Carter, who observed the election as one of several thousand international observers—India’s chief election commissioner N. Gopalaswami was also present—has described it as the “most transformational’’ he has seen so far.
According to the latest results, the Maoists have won 118 out of 240 seats that went to the polls in the “first past the post” system. Of the remaining 361 seats (the total strength of the house is 601), 26 members will be nominated, while the remaining 335 seats will be filled through a system of proportional representation— voters vote for parties, not candidates, and the seats will be filled on the basis of the proportion of votes received by each party.
India’s National Security Adviser M. K. Narayanan had told journalists in New Delhi in the run-up to the elections that India had put a “great deal of faith” in the Nepali Congress and was unsure about where it stood with the Maoists.