(TibetanReview.net, Jan12’23) – While claiming to seek a balanced relation with India and China, Nepal’s newly installed, pro-China Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal has vowed to recover the country’s territories allegedly occupied by India, but chosen to remain silent on similar issues over the border with Chinese occupied Tibet.
His remarks followed his winning of the trust vote in the ‘Pratinidhi Sabha’, or the house of representatives.
After winning the trust vote of 268 of the 275 lawmakers in the country’s parliament, Prachanda said that his government’s foreign policy would be guided by the national interest of Nepal, reported the firstpost.com Jan 11.
“Nepal would seek balanced and friendly relations with all countries, including its two neighbours – China and India,” Dahal, also known as Prachanda, has said.
The ruling coalition of seven parties is led by Prachanda’s Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre), which won the third highest number of seats in the November election, and KP Sharma Oli’s Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist-Leninist) which won the second highest number after outmaneuvering Nepali Congress which won the highest number of seats without a simple majority.
The coalition government has pledged in its Common Minimum Programme (CMP) that it would get back the territories that Nepal claimed as part of its own, accusing India of being in illegal occupation of Nepali territory.
Interestingly, the CMP, which was formally made public mere hours before the trust vote, had no mention of Nepal’s territorial dispute with China, the report noted.
Earlier, Nepal under the prime ministership of Oli had raked up issues ranging from territorial disputes in Limpiyadhura, Kalapani and Lipulekh. He got a new map that showed nearly 400 sq kms of India’s areas as part of Nepal, endorsed by parliament of his country, apparently at the behest of China, the report said.
Prachanda, who led an ultra-leftist insurgency in Nepal between 1996 and 2006, is an unmitigated admirer of Mao Zedong whose ideology had inspired him to lead the anti-monarchy insurgency in the country.