By Sudeshna Sarkar, IANS
Kathmandu : The lightning handover of Indian kidney racket kingpin Amit Kumar by Nepal to Indian authorities within 48 hours of his arrest from a holiday resort indicates the ‘kidney king’ became a pawn in Indo-Nepal politics.
Although the police had said that Kumar would be first charged with violating Nepal’s Foreign Exchange Regulation Act since he had over Nepali Rs.10 million, far in excess of the $2,000 a visitor can carry undeclared, he was handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Saturday after Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala ordered the home ministry to do so, bypassing the foreign ministry headed by a different party.
The handover is Koirala’s bid to get back into the good books of his powerful southern neighbour India after he blotted his copybook badly last month with anti-India statements.
In the course of relieving his past to a television station, the octogenarian Koirala, accused of being more authoritarian than King Gyanendra, said that when his Nepali Congress staged a pro-democracy movement in the 70s from hideouts in India and Nepal, he was advised by the then Indian spy chief R.N. Kao to hijack a helicopter from Nepal to India.
Koirala also said that he had counterfeited Indian currency while hiding in India to fund the revolutionary movement of his party.
Although the TV station developed cold feet and aired the interview after editing the references to RAW, its sister publication, the Nepal weekly, published the unexpurgated version, creating a furore in India and Nepal.
The stink caused the PMO’s office to discontinue the kamikaze reminiscences, both on the TV channel and in the magazine.
Immediately after the hullabaloo, Koirala disappeared from public eye, apparently on grounds of indisposition.
However, sources close to the premier point out that illness has been a favourite resort of Koirala when he wanted to avoid confrontations, embarrassing situations or plain express his anger.
The Indian displeasure was compounded by Koirala’s statement that the continuing turbulence in the Terai plains could be resolved in “two minutes” if India wanted it, suggesting a link between New Delhi and the agitating groups in the Terai.
A similar suggestion by a senior UN official recently triggered a strong protest from India at the UN and a campaign in Nepal to make the home ministry laud New Delhi’s cooperation.
Koirala, who desires to see his daughter Sujata, currently a ministry without portfolio, firmly ensconced in politics, realises that he needs New Delhi’s good will to survive. Ahead of him lies the rocky April 10 election.
Already postponed twice, if he fails to hold the polls a third time, the consequences will be disastrous, especially if India withdraws its support.
A fresh threat to the polls has surfaced with three Terai parties calling an indefinite closure from Wednesday.
India’s help is essential to reach a compromise with the different protesting parties. Amit Kumar’s deportation is a small price to pay for such a huge gain.