By Sudeshna Sarkar, IANS
Kathmandu : Celebrated as a national holiday in the past, Nepal’s Queen Mother’s birthday Tuesday was a glum affair for the beleaguered royal family as the government began a process to take over King Gyanendra’s inherited property within 15 days.
Gyanendra, once revered as a Hindu god in his kingdom but now facing an election in 92 days that will decide if he keeps his crown, received yet another blow Monday when the council of ministers formed a team to estimate the assets of his slain brother Birendra and seize it so it can be put it to public use under a trust.
Due to relentless pressure by the Maoists to abolish monarchy, the government as a concession approved a five-member ministerial team that will undertake the nationalisation of the murdered king and his family’s assets.
Headed by Home Minister Krishna Prasad Sitaula, the ministerial team includes two Maoist ministers.
The cabinet decision came on the eve of the 80th birthday of Queen Mother Ratna, who is reported to have been an advocate of the royal coup in 2005.
In the past, Nepal used to celebrate her birthday on Aug 21 as Children’s Day.
As a mark of the growing anger with the entire royal family, the new government that came to power after the king’s fall, decided to stop doing so.
The state move will be a cause for alarm for all royal relatives who now face the possibility of government deciding to take away their excess property as well.
Though Nepal has a law that imposes a ceiling on the amount of land one can own, royal relatives have been flouting it with impunity.
After the end of Gyanendra’s regime, there has been a rush among some of them to sell their property, fearing such a contingency.
The cabinet move came almost a year after Nepal’s parliament, angered by Gyanendra’s move to grab absolute power through a coup, asked the government to transfer the king’s inherited property under state ownership.
In the past, though the government had formed a team under a minister to assess the extent of the considerable fortune held by the late king Birendra, the panel failed to do so as the palace stonily ignored its requests for details of the inherited wealth.
In June 2001, the then king Birendra, his wife Aishwarya and eight other members of the royal family were killed in a midnight massacre in the royal palace in Kathmandu that is blamed on Birendra’s son, the then crown prince Dipendra, who too perished in the tragedy.
The massacre paved the way for the king’s younger brother Gyanendra to ascend the throne though ordinarily, he would not have been king.
Along with the crown, Gyanendra inherited his slain brother’s considerable property, including mansions, parks, priceless jewellery and cash in bank accounts.
Last year, after Gyanendra’s attempt to rule Nepal directly failed and an uprising forced him to surrender power, his growing unpopularity made parliament take a series of unprecedented steps to curb his influence.