By Sudeshna Sarkar, IANS,
Kathmandu: As fear and uncertainty gripped Nepal ahead of a dire constitutional breakdown, the ruling Maoists began grappling with a new opponent – their former comrades.
Former Maoist forest minister Matrika Prasad Yadav, who left the party alleging it had merely exploited the Terai plains to come to power, declared a nationwide general strike Tuesday in his first open confrontation with his former peers.
The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), the new party of dissidents, called the protest with the support of six ethnic groups.
The ruling Maoists reacted quickly to the challenge, deploying security forces to arrest dissident leaders, including their spokesman, Bharat Dahal.
Yadav said police had arrested nearly 36 leaders ahead of the strike while they were dispersing after a peaceful street-corner meeting.
The arrests took the wind out of the protesters’ sails in the capital where the closure was only partially successful.
However, Pokhara city in central Nepal, a major tourist destination, was affected to a greater degree as well as some districts in the southern Terai plains where the dissidents have a stronger presence.
The strike also forced the ruling Maoists to call off a mass meeting announced in Kathmandu Wednesday.
Public protests began to grow at the rising disruptions with tourist entrepreneurs, business men, social activists and suffering citizens demonstrating in the capital against them.
“I don’t even know who has called the banda (local name for a general strike) or what the reason behind it is,” said 47-year-old Prabhu Maharjan, the owner of a small shop in Gongobhu who had walked for nearly an hour to join the anti-strike rally starting from Thamel, the tourist hub in Kathmandu.
“These days, any local organisation can call a banda and get away with it. It’s a shame; there’s no rationale behind such protests.”
Two more nationwide closure calls – on Friday and Saturday – have been given by two groups, demanding the promulgation of a new constitution by the May 28 deadline.
One of them, the Vishwa Hindu Mahasangh, is also seeking to stop the slaughter of cows, regarded by Hindus as a sacred animal.
While likely to be ineffective and defied by the people, they however add to the cumulative pressure on Prime Minister Jhala Nath Khanal, who is facing a clamour for his resignation.
Khanal, who this month admitted his government would not be able to get the new constitution ready by May 28, is seeking to amend the constitution and extend the deadline by an extra year.
However, his certainty that he would get the vote of two-third of the nearly 600 MPs in parliament to push the amendment through was badly shaken Monday when an ally, the Madhesi Janadhikar Forum Nepal party, split vertically, causing a dent in his vote bank.
The main opposition party, the Nepali Congress, also refused to bail him out, demanding his resignation. To make matters worse for the communist premier, his own party is also asking him to step down, saying it would approve only of a six-month extension.
(Sudeshna Sarkar can be contacted at [email protected])