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Nepali Congress, the main opposition party, started its long-delayed Mahasamiti meeting on Dec 14. The four-day event was supposed to end on Dec 17. Yet after acri­monious exchanges among top leaders and pressure from the grassroots for a change after the party’s humiliating defeat in the 2017 elections, the jamboree of 1,600 delegates from all over Nepal concluded only on Dec 23. While top leaders tried to present a united face at the end of the gathering of the party’s second most powerful decision-making body, Congress is anything but united as rival factions constantly search for a leg-up ahead of the 2020 general convention, the most powerful body.First, some positives. From now the party will elect 13 of its 14 office-bearers, with the party president getting to pick only a treasurer. Until now the all-powerful president could pick more than half the number of office-bearers at his discretion. This alone would go a long way towards establishing internal democracy in the Grand Old Party.

In another positive, among the 14 office-bearers, seven will be elected from seven ethnic clusters as provided in the national charter, while one will be from the marginalized community. This should help the party shed its image of being an ‘exclusive bastion’ of Khas-Arya.

Yet even more meaningful are the vital things left out of the final memorandum. For instance, the debate between whether the party should have only one kind of membership, instead of the current ‘active’ and ‘general’ members, remains undecided. Interestingly, around 43 percent of the 1,600 delegates at the Mahasamiti were in favor of reinstating the country’s Hindu status. The memorandum is silent on this too. The memorandum expressed concern over the government’s ‘indifference’ to implementing federalism, its ‘authoritarian’ ways and its ‘institutionalization’ of corruption. Yet there is nothing to suggest that Congress, itself packed with leaders of dubious probity, can mount a strong challenge against the govern­ment on these fronts.

That, in any case, may not be the focus of its top leaders as they jockey for advantage ahead of the 2020 general convention. It was partly to accommodate all the competing interest groups that the number of office-bear­ers, as well as the size of the central working committee, had to be more than doubled. With many delegates at the Mahasamiti meeting wanting to turn the clock back to the pre-2006 dispensation, the party’s commitment to ‘socialism’ and ‘democracy’ also appears increasingly dubious. The ills that afflicted the party during the 2017 elections are far from healed.

On November 20, Mahanta Thakur, the reigning presidium coordinator of the Rastriya Janata Party Nepal (RJPN), was replaced by Rajendra Mahato, in what has been described by Thakur’s supporters as a ‘coup’. Thakur supporters also blamed Mahato for compromising Madhesi agenda in his rush to join the federal government. Kamal Dev Bhattarai caught up with Mahato to get his inputs on the federal government’s performances, his chances of joining it and the intra-party rift in the RJPN.

How do you view the federal government performance in past 10 months?

The performance of a government with two-thirds support in national parliament is unsatisfactory. It has failed to meet people’s expecta­tions, and has invited a lot of anger and frustration. The two-thirds gov­ernment has neither been able to deliver on its promises nor to speed up the development process.

Your party supported Oli-led gov­ernment in return of a promise that the constitution would be amended. What is the progress?

When the government was formed, PM Oli had sufficient sup­port of lawmakers in federal par­liament, and there was no need of our support to secure majority votes. PM Oli, however, sought our help to widen his support base. We supported him with some con­ditions though: one of them was regarding constitution amendment. At that time, PM Oli had assured us that the constitution would be amended on the basis of necessity and relevance. Madhesi, Tharu and Janajati, Dalit and other marginal­ized community are eagerly waiting for the amendment but there has so far been no progress.

Are you planning to withdraw your support to the government?

In terms of arithmetic strength, our support does not make any dif­ference as the ruling NCP has suf­ficient numbers in parliament. At the same time, even if we support the government, we are free to pro­test and criticize it. However, if this government is not serious about our demands, we could think of withdrawing our support. We are currently in intra-party discussions, and are also considering withdraw­ing our support to the government.

Some RJPN leaders close to Mah­anta Thakur say that you have been particularly keen on joining the government. Is this true?

This is not true. Until and unless our demands are fulfilled, we cannot join the government. In the current situation, there is no point in joining the government. The focus of our party is to press for constitution amendment at the earli­est. During different Madhes move­ments, many have sacrificed their lives for the rights of Madhesis and other groups and it is our responsi­bility to honor their sacrifice.

There are media reports about ongoing unification talks between the RJPN and Upendra Yadav-led Sanghiya Samajbadi Forum.

There are some fundamental differences between the two par­ties on how they view the constitu­tion. We marked the Constitutional Day (Ashoj 3) as a black day, while Yadavji celebrated the occasion. Currently Sanghiya Samajbadi Forum is in the government. That is why I do not see the possibility of unification. There are far too many ideological differences between the two parties.

Aren’t the core Madhesi agendas being diluted due to constant rifts and splits in Madhes-based parties?

I do not think so. Our first priority is to resolve all agendas through peaceful means and we are urging major parties to heed our demands. There is a perception that the Mad­hesi movement can be strong only if we hit the streets. If necessary and if the government continues to ignore our demands, we will even do that. Right now, we are drawing the gov­ernment’s attention to our demands through peaceful means.

In 2015, there was strong Indian support for the demands of Mad­hes-based parties. It now seems that India has abandoned you.

The international community sup­ports all political movements of Nepali people. There was interna­tional support for the 1990 move­ment as well as the 2006 movement. There was also support for other movements launched by the peo­ple. If people again come to the street demanding their rights, they will once again get international support. Our major demands are change in provincial boundaries, more autonomy for the provinces and, guaranteed rights of all mar­ginalized communities such as Dalit, Madhesi, Janajati, Tharu and others.

How do you plan to push for that elusive constitution-amendment?

We are in consultations with stake­holders on how to move ahead. Instead of going separately, we have realized a need for a unified move­ment among the proponents of iden­tity politics. I think that only a uni­fied movement of Madhesi, Tharu, Dalit, Janajati and other marginal­ized community would yield result.

There is no point in joining the government. The focus of our party is to press for constitution amendment at the earliest

In a separate context, dissatis­faction seems to be going in the RJPN after you took the post of its presidium coordinator?

I do not think so. Now, we are making preparations to hold the party’s general convention. That done, the party will be stronger and more united. We want to develop the RJPN as an alternative political force of the country. That is why our priority is to strengthen the party at the grassroots level.

Maintaining unity among the Madhesi parties that had come together to form the Rastriya Janata Party Nepal (RJPN) ahead of the three-tier elections in 2017, it was then speculated, would be tough. The speculation has been vindicated. In a year and a half since its formation, the six top leaders in the presidium, each of whom represented a separate political party at the time of the merger, have con­tinuously sparred. Things came to a head when on Nov 20, Mahanta Thakur, the reigning presidium coordinator, was removed from the post and replaced by Rajendra Mahato, in what has been described by Thakur’s supporters as a ‘coup.’ Many reasons contributed to Thakur’s downfall. One was the disagreement over whether the RJPN should join the fed­eral government of KP Sharma Oli. After assuming the post of the coordinator, Mahato has been keen to emphasize he is in no rush to join the government, and that the party will join only after key demands of the RJPN, including constitution amendment, are first met. Nonetheless, that Mahato has for some time been negotiating with Prime Minister KP Oli over min­isterial berths is an open secret.

Thakur and his followers were against joining the government unless their demands were first met

While the Mahato fac­tion was in favor of joining the federal government, and pressing for their case from inside the govern­ment, Thakur and his followers were strongly against doing so unless their demands were first met. That was not the whole story though. Other members of the presidium were also unhappy with Thakur’s ‘unilateral’ ways. Thakur, in their reckoning, instituted a culture of nepotism by picking only those close to him to stand in the three-tier elections in 2017, a trend that has supposedly continued while filling key party positions.

If the RJPN breaks apart now, the key Madhesi agenda of constitution amendment will be virtually abandoned. The Federalist Socialist Forum Nepal, the other big Madhesi party is already a part of the federal government, even as PM Oli has shown no inclination to amend the constitution. There is a risk that if the mainstream parties in Madhes are seen to be deviating from their electoral mandate, Madhesi politics could go into the hands of extremist forces. Right now those who have always been against amending the ‘perfect constitution’ might be rejoicing. But soon they might be in for a rude shock.

The recent criticism of the government, and of the prime minister in particular, has clearly touched a raw nerve of KP Sharma Oli. The criticism was centered on how the prime minister helped with the logistics and cost of an international summit being hosted by an organization of dubious credentials in Nepal. The Nepal chapter of the Uni­versal Peace Federation (UPF) has in the past been accused of involvement in forced conversion of people into Christianity. Many commentators in this country where over 80 percent people identify as Hindus found that problematic. Others faulted the government for paying the bills of a summit from which Nepal stands to gain little. Most problematic was the prime minister’s acceptance of a reward worth $100,000 from the UPF as well as ‘blessing’ of its head who boasts of being ‘Female Jesus’. Why did the prime minister have to sink so low? There may be a few reasons. One is that the UPF has been sponsors of all-ex­penses-paid foreign trips of senior Nepal Commu­nist Party leaders, so they somehow felt beholden to the organization. There were speculations that the organizers also gave ‘heavy donations’ to the ruling parties—in return for Nepal government agreeing to confer greater interna­tional legitimacy on the UPF.

PM Oli clarified that as a secular state Nepal could not bar any faith

In his defense, PM Oli clarified that as a secular state and as a country traditionally known for its hospitality—and one that is looking to bring in two million tourists a year to boot—he found no reason to object to the religion of the UPF top brass. He also said that should the intellectuals who have recently criticized him get into a serious debate with him, the prime minister would make them lose face, exposing their hypoc­risy. He then added that the summit had greatly boosted Nepal’s international image.

But what he left out was more meaningful. He didn’t say why he was adamant on hosting the summit, despite being advised against it by senior government officials. He didn’t say how much the government had spent on security and care of the around 1,500 visiting VIPs and VVIPs. He didn’t say how being awarded by Hak Ja Han, the UPF chairperson and a leader of what has been described as a ‘divisive Chris­tian cult’, was becoming of a prime minister of a secular state.

With no easy way to wiggle out of it, the prime minister is trying to deflect genuine criticism with pure bluster. But deep down he must know he made a huge mistake.