Sharma takes over RPP (Thapa), says his party will favor the line of ceremonial monarchy
A veteran politician and former minister Rabindra Nath Sharma has taken over the reins of Rastriya Prajatantra Party (Kamal Thapa faction).
On Friday, after its president and former minister Kamal Thapa resigned from his position, the central committee elected Sharma unanimously to replace him.
Talking to Nepalnews after assuming the new responsibility, Sharma said that his party favors ceremonial monarchy – the very line propounded by Prime Minister and president of Nepali Congress (NC) Girija Prasad Koirala.
"At present, I see there is going to be a swift polarization between leftist forces and democratic forces. Our party will work to strengthen the democratic camp," Sharma said.
He said though his party cannot go "anti-current" and stand against Constituent Assembly (CA), there is a need to have more clarity on issues such as 'modality and election procedure for the CA to be successful.' Otherwise, he added, there could be "problems in our national unity."
On the current peace process, Sharma said it was becoming too lengthy. "The country and the people cannot remain prisoner of indecision for too long," he said. Sharma also expressed grave concern over the deteriorating rule of law, curtailment of liberty and existence of two powers.
The RPP (Thapa) faction had emerged during the period of royal regime when then Home Minister, a staunch royalist, walked away from RPP led by Pashupati SJB Rana and floated a new one.
It was on January 10, 2006 that the RPP had split for the second time in a year (earlier former RPP president Surya Bahadur Thapa had formed a new Rastriya Janashakti Party) when the dissident faction led by then Home Minister Kamal Thapa organized a special convention removing party president Pashupati SJB Rana and installing Thapa in his place. At that time, the dissident faction had amended the party statute and passed no-trust motion against Rana. Later, Padma Sundar Lawati and Rabindra Nath Sharma had also announced their candidature for the position of president of new RPP. They later agreed in favor of Thapa and the latter was elected unopposed. Now less than a year later, Sharma has bounced back to head the party. nepalnews.com sd Oct 27 06
