Girijababu’s loss is Deuba’s gain

Girijababu is frantically trying to make up the loss in Sujata’s case by throwing the dice before it could straight away go to Deuba’s gain.

By Basanta Lohani

Election is a zero sum game. For one to win, the other has to lose. Then follows the usual rhetoric. With smile running all across the face, the winner outpours his magnanimity, ‘no one has lost or won and so on and so forth.’ This is precisely the scene when Nepali Congress chose its leader of the Parliamentary Party on Saturday. However, Sher Bahadur Deuba was not around to listen to Ram Chandra Poudel’s best wishes.

Poudel won with 61 votes in the second round limiting his rival Deuba to 48 votes. He had secured six votes more than Poudel in the first round in the four-corner contest. However, it fell short for the mandatory 50 percent-plus requirement as 109 lawmakers out of 114 cast their votes. The other two contestants, Suprabha Ghimire and K.B Gurung, managed only 12 each. Out of these 24 votes in the second round, Poudel bagged 21 plus his own vote that had gone invalid in the first round. Deuba’s second round was a poor show as his score increased only by three.

Girijababu’s failure has always become Deuba’s gain. His first time failure catapulted Deuba into becoming the prime minister in 1995. This repeated in 2001 as well. However, the third time was his own with profuse royal blessing. The first episode unfolded because of discontentment. In his effort to castigate his opponents inside his party in line with latent but governing psyche ‘Girija is Nepali Congress and Nepali Congress is Girija’, Girijababu went for a snap poll in 1994.

It became disastrous when an outraged Ganesh Man Singh, party’s ‘iron man’, disowned NC and campaigned against Girijababu and his lieutenants. However, he won in both the constituencies and was also successful in getting his party president Kishunji defeated. But most of his boys lost. Thus, NC was reduced to minority. He still could have become the leader of the Congress parliamentary party. Because of the debacle a drooping Girijababu opted for Deuba.

UML’s single largest party government collapsed as the Supreme Court restored the parliament that was dissolved to bypass an already registered no confidence motion. This paved way for coalition politics and for Deuba to become the prime minister. Girijababu’s strategy to keep Kishunji outside the parliament became costlier for Girijababu but a bonus to Deuba.

Greed had already taken the driving seat. So was Girijababu’s spirit for his comeback. After eighteen months, he engineered the collapse of Deuba government in a no confidence voting as a prelude for his comeback. This triggered competition between UML and NC for a government headed by Rastriya Prajatantra Party. Thus, once a political outcast RPP became holy enough to lead the government in 1997 because of this competition between the partners who fought together for the restoration of democracy. The first was UML supported RPP government followed by the congress supported.

The over ambition of UML’s Bamdev Gautam took off, making things much easier for Girijababu. On March 5, 1998, he split the party with the up thrust generated by gold smuggling as claimed on April 8, 2000 by UML in a public function while marking ten years of restoration of democracy. The UML split also made Nepal Congress the single largest party. Thus, within a month, Girijababu, disregarding his agreement with RPP to wait for his turn, forced Surya Bahadur Thapa to resign and he became prime minister for the second time in 1998.

Now he had enough political elbowroom with two communist parties CPN-UML and CPN-ML competing for his favor. He honeymooned with Bamdev’s ML party for seven months. As Bamdev’s propensity for state resources increased, necessitating a new resource sharing arrangement more than the power sharing, he threw him out for a national government with UML and others. All along this time, Deuba was in virtual oblivion because now he hardly could gain at Girijababu’s gain.

Girijababu needed his long time friend Kishunji for a Nepali Congress ‘face’ to win the 1999’s general election. It was a wakeup call for Deuba, too, for his possible role through Kisunji. NC secured comfortable majority and Kishunji became prime minister for the second time and Deuba became the chairman of the team for negotiating with the Maoists. But the way Girijababu is he forced Kishunji to resign in less than ten months. So much so that he did not even allow him to continue his impending France visit that Girijababu took later. No wonder Kishunji was so much in his pain when he told the parliament how airport smugglers snatched his government. Instead, Deuba too went into limbo in terms of power exercise. The first parliamentary party election in NC’s history was held March 20, 2000 to choose its leader. Deuba contested with Kisunji’s backing. Girijababu easily defeated him to ascend to premiership for the third time.

Deuba got enough political mileage out of his defeat. It bolstered his image as someone who could even challenge an invincible Girijababu. This image grew larger than his size also because of the resentment over the way Kishunju was ousted. The June 1 Royal Massacre in 2001 put severe pressure on Girijababu to resign, whose image was already being constantly tainted because of corruption scandals that became an issue for the disruption of house for over one and half month. Deuba became the choice of NC lawmakers when he was pitted against Shushil Koirala, Girijababu’s nephew, for the parliamentary party’s leader following thereafter. This is how Girijababu’s loss became Deuba’s gain.

Girijababu has not lost since then until Sujata’s ascendancy case despite NC was split and joined. Having successfully brought the Maoists from the jungle into the peace process, Girijbabu’s height increased but Deuba’s did not despite being together lately. For whatever reason, Deuba’s competence has always raised hilarious discussion. His trusted colleagues became alienated and abandoned him. Most of the 24 votes in the second round were his own.

His defeat this time is not with Girijababu thus would give him any mileage. Instead, this defeat with Poudel will only erode his image. Had it not been Girijababu’s loss his gain, he would have been one of NC’s deputy prime ministers in the way of RSS –Ram Chandra, Sher Bahadur and Shailja. Now his junior colleagues need his parentage for sharing power more than his leadership. Girijababu is frantically trying to make up the loss in Sujata’s case by throwing the dice before it could straight away go to Deuba’s gain. What is more in store now? Even at this age, if Girijababu gains further what does its corollary mean for Deuba no matter how hard Girijababu sermonises to take it in a sportsman spirit. Any way it is a good beginning for NC if allowed to go in a natural political process.

(Lohani is a Kathmandu based writer. He can be reached at: bklohani@hotmail.com)

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