Alert against raid

Alert against raid     KHIMLAL DEVKOTA Maoist crisis Most communist parties around the world are either ineffective entities or have undergone multiple divisions. Or they have died naturally because they refused to remold according to changing times. Just as the dinosaur became extinct because of its own weight and size. It is from this perspective that we should see why UCPN (Maoist) leader Baburam Bhattarai has been raising the issue of transforming the party in line with changing realities. Thus the real reason behind crisis in the party is not dissent but Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal’s failure to devise progressive policies to lead the nation forward. Take the failure of the first Constituent Assembly. Our party had 40 percent seats in the first CA and could comfortably garner two-third majority supports to draft the statute. But the party leadership vacillated between peace and constitution on one hand and insurrection on the other. Bhattarai and Mohan Baidya camps made the situation worse, though the former was always in favor of promulgating the constitution through CA. Bhattarai’s line was very clear: peace, constitution, socio-economic transformation and development. But there could be no consensus even on PLA integration during Dahal’s premiership because he was constantly vacillating between Baidya’s line of opposing integration (who wanted to use PLA for insurrection) and Bhattarai’s line of army integration as per the 12-point peace agreement. There has been a consistent difference in political lines between Baidya and Bhattarai. Baidya wants to resume “People’s War” to attain New Democratic Revolution. Bhattarai wants to build a base for socialism, the foundation for which has been laid by the People’s War, People’s Movement 2006 and Madhesh Movement 2007. The problem is that Dahal has been taking Baidya’s line in theory but Bhattarai’s line in practice. Yet Bhattarai and Baidya stand together in opposing monolithic functioning of Dahal and running party according to a system. The Dhobhighat gathering was the product of this unity against monolithic organizational system of the party. As regards Bhattarai’s consensus building credentials, he was able to bring Nepali Congress, CPN-UML and Democratic Madhesi Forum together along (there were altogether 16 parties) in his government. But this could not last long. Within the party, Baidya started to mount opposition as he wanted to have all major ministries for his camp, at the cost of isolating Dahal, a demand Bhattarai did not yield to. This resulted in street protest against Bhattarai from within the party. He was not allowed to bring full budget by the opposition parties, a move tacitly supported by Dahal. Thus in his nearly 19-month stint as the Prime Minister, Bhattarai had to work under both external and internal threats. He was able to make some notable achievements despite this. They deserve a mention here. The historic army integration took place under his government leadership whereby 71 officers together with 1,460 ex-PLA soldiers were integrated into Nepali Army. Those ex-combatants who did not join the integration process were given voluntary retirement with handsome economic cash packages. Thus one of the key aspects of the process was completed during his rule. Bhattarai introduced new ministries: Ministry of Urban Affairs and Ministry of Cooperation and Poverty Alleviation. He created Investment Board to form a base for economic development. Similarly, in order to bring remote Karnali Region and Far-Western Region into mainstream development course, Karnali Development Council and Far-west Development Council were created. He also created Public Enterprises Directorate Board to bring all public corporations under one window and to facilitate Public Private Partnership. PEDB was formed to ensure that recruitments in public enterprise bodies would be made based on professional merit. To increase the productivity of people, he introduced programs targeting youth and self employing industrialists under which Rs 2, 00, 000 would be given to aspiring youths without collateral. They would also get free business training. In order to gradually bring the majority of people living under poverty line into mainstream he started the scheme of identifying and providing the poor with identity cards. Bhattarai also launched national pride programs in infrastructure development. He concentrated in 17 big projects with the aim of finishing Mid-hill Highway, East-West Railway, Postal Highway, North- South Highway, Kathmandu-Tarai fast track, international airports in Pokhara and Nijgadh, and big hydro and irrigation projects, among others. He allocated budget to purchase two narrow-bodied aircraft for Nepal Airlines. He also facilitated the purchase of small aircraft. These were steps in boosting tourism. He was instrumental in making the fund collection in famous Hindu temple Pashupatinath transparent and accountable. In order to reach out to the people, he made it a point to stay in ordinary people’s house once a month under the program “Prime Minister in People’s Premises.” He established “Hello Sarkar” desk in PMO to heed to people’s grievances and address them. He also spoke to people directly through his monthly radio program “Prime Minister with People.” His road expansion project in and around Kathmandu Valley has been exemplary. This project had been stalled for the last three decades. He put in place Kathmandu Valley Development Authority to end chaos in Kathmandu and started integrated development. All these development initiatives took place despite street protests from Baidya faction, despite not being allowed to present full budget by the President and despite various NGO and INGOs picketing Baluwatar. Perhaps Bhattarai’s was the only cabinet in which he had to deal with the largest number of coalition partners—16. Yet he successfully administered the country for nearly 19 months with little or no support from his own party. When he saw there was no political willingness even in his own party for second CA polls under his leadership, he handed over government leadership to Chief Justice Khilraj Regmi who conducted second CA elections. Regarding the crisis during and after the recently concluded National Convention, Bhattarai was all for bringing the party organization under a system. Not just him, but all those who believe in his political line and who oppose monolithic structure were in this mission together. The decision of Bhattarai camp not to join the Central Committee under the status quo arrangement was their way of alerting against the raid on the party by internal and external forces. If one were to evaluate Bhattarai without taking these contributions into consideration—as Mahabir Paudyal did in his article (“Red alert,” Republica, May 14)—it would be unjust on the former prime minister. He is still the only trustworthy leader that we can look up to and the only one who is capable of giving a definite path to the nation in these chaotic times. The author is a senior UCPN (Maoist) leader khimlaldevkota@gmail.com