By Sudeshna Sarkar, IANS
Kathmandu : The Nepal government’s call to protesting groups in the Terai plains to begin talks and allow the crucial April election to be held in peace fell on deaf ears with ethnic leaders rejecting the plea and meeting in neighbouring India to draw up a poll strategy.
Three prominent Terai groups, one of which was declared a terrorist organisation by the US last year, met near Bihar’s Sitamarhi district earlier this week to formulate a joint opposition to the April 10 constituent assembly election if the government fails to address their demands before the polls.
“The government will not hold the polls,” former minister Rajendra Mahato, who floated a new party last year, told IANS.
“If it tries to hold the election by force, it will be meaningless. People will not take part and consequently, Terai will not recognise the representatives forced on them by the state,” he said.
Mahato, who heads the Sadbhavana Party, and his ally Upendra Yadav, chief of the Madhesi Janadhikar Forum, met a third Terai group chief Jay Krishna Goit in Bihar.
Goit, once one of the most senior Maoist leaders in the plains, left the party to launch the Janatantrik Terai Mukti Morcha and start an armed struggle in south Nepal for an autonomous Madhes state, much as the Maoists had done in the 1990s.
Mahato said his and Yadav’s parties would announce a new agitation from Saturday if the government failed to address the community’s demands before the polls.
Madhesis, as Terai residents are called, have been one of the most neglected and disparaged communities in Nepal. After the end of King Gyanendra’s rule in 2006, the movement for an autonomous Madhes state has been snowballing.
“To create a conducive environment for polls, the government has to declare Madhes an autonomous state,” Mahato said.
“We also want the election laws amended so that Madhesis get 50 percent representation instead of the current 20 percent.”
The main Terai groups are also asking for the nearly four-dozen people killed during the Madhes movement to be declared martyrs and compensation for their families.
They also want proportional representation in all state organs, including the army, police and bureaucracy.
A new Terai party of former ministers and MPs is supporting most of their demands.
The Terai Madhesi Democratic Party, headed by former minister Mahanta Thakur, who belonged to Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala’s Nepali Congress party, is supporting most of the demands.
Another former minister and member of the party, Hridayesh Tripathi, tacitly ruled the polls out if the demands were not met.
“Madhes is in an agitating mood,” he said. “To hold the election and begin dialogue, the government has to create a conducive atmosphere.”
The election was postponed last June due to the growing lawlessness and political protests in the plains.
With the government failing to address either issue, the fate of the April 10 election still remains uncertain.
If Mahato and Yadav unveil a new agitation programme Saturday, it is bound to impact the twice-postponed polls.