Nepal Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda stirred a controversy saying that an Indian businessman had offered to help him get the country’s top post, PTI reported on Thursday.
Prachanda made the remarks on Monday at a launch event of the book Roads to the Valley: The Legacy of Sardar Pritam Singh in Nepal. He said that Singh, a Nepal-based trucking sector entrepreneur, had played an important role in enhancing relations between Kathmandu and Delhi.
“He had once made efforts to make me the prime minister,” Prachanda had said, according to PTI. “He travelled to Delhi several times and held multiple rounds of talks with political leaders in Kathmandu to make me the prime minister.”
Opposition parties have criticised the remarks saying that they showed political interference from India.
The main Opposition party Communist Party of Nepal-(Unified Marxist-Leninist) disrupted proceedings in the Upper House of the Nepali Parliament on Wednesday, demanding the prime minister’s resignation. KP Sharma Oli, the party’s chairperson, told reporters that they wanted Prachanda’s resignation, and not a clarification.
“His remarks have given a blow to national independence, dignity, the Constitution and the Parliament itself,” Oli added.
A meeting of the Lower House of Parliament, has also been postponed. Prachanda is slated to issue a clarification in Parliament on Friday afternoon, reported The Kathmandu Post.
Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist–Leninist) lawmaker Raghuji Pant said that Kathmandu does not need a prime minister appointed by Delhi.
“The prime minister’s remarks are worthy of criticism,” said Nepali Congress General Secretary Bishwa Prakash Sharma. “His remarks are wrong,” .
However, Communication and IT Minister and government spokesperson Rekha Sharma said on Thursday that the prime minister will not resign over his remarks, reported PTI. The Prime Minister’s secretariat said in a statement that Prachanda’s remarks had been “misinterpreted”.
“There were efforts to fulfill political interests taking advantage of the remarks, and the matter had drawn serious attention of the secretariat,” said the statement.
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