Thapa meets Maoist leadership to convey King Gyanendra's tidings
As the countdown for declaring Nepal a republic begins with only weeks
left for the first sitting of the Constituent Assembly to take place, King
Gyanendra has reportedly said that he just wishes for a "respectable
status" even though that means according him cultural and religious rights
only.
This was conveyed by Rastriya Prajatantra Party (Nepal) chairman Kamal
Thapa to CPN-Maoist Chairman Prachanda during their meeting at the
latter's Nayabazaar residence, second in as many weeks.
During the nearly hour long meeting in which, another senior Maoist leader
Dr Baburam Bhattarai was also present, Thapa, who is nowadays seen in his
new avatar of palace's unofficial emissary, tried to learn about the
Maoist leadership's proposal of affording "honorable exit" to the monarch.
Thapa also told the Maoist leadership that King Gyanendra wanted the
Maoist leadership to uphold the April 11, 2006 agreement between royal
palace and the political parties, which effectively ended King Gyanendra's
royal regime and led to the formation of the seven party government and
jump started the peace process.
Although the details of the secretive agreement between the king and the
political parties held on the mediation of Indian special envoy Karan
Singh, who is himself the erstwhile Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir has not
been made public, Thapa told Prachanda that both parties had agreed to end
only "dictatorial monarchy" but not the entire institution of monarchy and
that during his many meetings with various political parties King
Gyanendra was assured that some form of monarchy would be retained.
Thapa told Prachanda that the king wants the Maoist leadership to abide by
this understanding and also conveyed to Prachanda that the king intends to
remain as the "symbolic" king having "cultural and religious rights".
In the earlier meeting with Thapa Prachanda had proposed that if the king
voluntarily abdicated then he would be accorded a respectful place and
could even be allowed to be active in politics. Dr Baburam Bhattarai had
also said that if the king voluntarily gives up his throne then he would
be given "cultural rights". The Maoist party later clarified that giving
cultural rights to the King didn't mean that he would remain as a cultural
king.
According to sources, Prachanda told Thapa the people are not in favour of
retaining any form of monarchy and that the king should leave his throne
by respecting the sentiment of the people. The Maoist chairman also warned
that if he didn't do that then a difficult situation would arise.
Top Maoist leaders have stepped up their rhetoric against the king in
recent days, saying that if he doesn't voluntarily leave his throne then
they might even consider overthrowing him out of the palace by using
force. nepalnews.com ag May 12 08
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