By Sudeshna Sarkar, IANS
Kathmandu : With just two months left for a critical national election, the first in nine years, three regional parties from the restive Terai plains in south Nepal have announced an indefinite shutdown from Wednesday in a bid to force the seven-party government into conceding their demand for autonomy.
“We are not against the election,” former minister and Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala’s party man Mohanta Thakur said Saturday, announcing a new alliance of three Terai parties.
“However, we want our demands to be addressed before the (April 10) election.”
Thakur, who quit his ministry and his Nepali Congress party to float a new regional party, the Terai Madhes Loktantrik Party, has now allied himself with the party of another dissenting former minister Rajendra Mahato and his Sadbhavana Party.
Their third ally is the powerful Madhesi Janadhikar Forum led by Terai strong man Upendra Yadav, who succeeded in last year forcing the government to amend the new constitution and agree to an autonomous state in the Terai.
Yadav, who had resorted to a series of shutdowns and blockades in the plains last year that crippled the economy and forced the government to sign a pact with him, will be flexing his muscles again with the new partners under the aegis of a new front, the United Democratic Madhesi Morcha.
The Morcha Saturday said it had six key demands.
These include the right to self-determination and an autonomous state in the plains, inclusion of plains people in the army and bureaucracy on the basis of population, and compensation for the families of 45 people who were killed in the plains during the movement for autonomy.
The Morcha is also asking the government to stop hunting down members of the armed groups active in the plains and begin dialogue with them.
In addition to calling an indefinite closure from Wednesday, the rebels have also announced a blockade of highways and customs offices on the Indo-Nepal border from Feb 17.
The east-west highway that connects Nepal with India is also the landlocked mountainous state’s lifeline, through which it receives the daily supply of essential commodities and fuel.
Already reeling under a fuel crisis, any disruption on the highway is bound to impact Nepal badly.
The fresh threats could also hit the twice-postponed election if the government fails to resolve the dispute.
Mahato warned that the disruptions would also target the capital.
The unrest in the Terai forced the government to postpone the election last June.