80pc Maoist MPs will be from indigenous communities: Prachanda
Maoist chairman Prachanda today said that 80 percent of Maoist representatives in the upcoming interim government would be from ethnic and indigenous communities.
Speaking at an interaction organised by the Broad Democratic Republican Front in the capital, Prachanda said the “upper-caste people are rather artificial and this does not help in building New Nepal” and announced that nearly 80 percent of Maoist MPs in the interim legislature would be from indigenous and ethnic communities.
The Maoists will have 73 seats in the 330-member interim parliament to be formed after the introduction of the interim constitution, perhaps within a week.
A taskforce led by senior Maoist leader Ram Bahadur Thapa ‘Badal’, which was formed to recommend names for the interim parliament and interim government, is said to have already finalised the list of the party’s representatives.
At one point of his speech, Prachanda said he would like to be known by his nom de guerre ‘Prachanda’, as his real name Puspa Kamal Dahal is evocative of bahunbad (Brahminism).
Claiming that the aim of the decade-long war waged by his party was to turn the oppressed class into a ruling class and sideline the handful of ruling class people, Prachanda said the New Nepal would essentially be a republic. “Republicanism is the identity of the Maoists. Autonomous regions will be the characteristics of New Nepal,” he said. nepalnews.com mk Nov 29 06
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