Does Nepal PM exit mean India’s patience paid off?
Experts say too early to discern new govt’s stance on New Delhi
After being pilloried for the handling of Nepal situation, policy makers in New Delhi seem to believe that they have found their patience paying off in the ouster of the KP Oli government there.
The policy, they say, stayed course on the twin aims of Madeshis getting their constitutional rights and ousting a government which was slanting towards China. However, experts advise caution, saying its too early to make any conclusions about how new government will be in Nepal.
It was a long wait for the policy makers. But there was a degree of satisfaction in North Block as the “discreet moves paid off.’’
Their policy had earlier come under severe criticism for the rising anti-India feeling in Nepal and China trying to greater space in the Himalayan country.
New Delhi kept a closer tab on issues with national security adviser Ajit Doval and foreign secretary S Jaishankar overseeing the developments.
But Shiv Shankar Mukherjee, former Indian envoy to Nepal and UK, says “what has been happening in Nepal is a musical chair of among various political parties. In this case, the previous understanding between Oli and Maoist leader Prachanda seems to have gone awry. We need to wait and see what is going to happen now.”
Concurs MK Bhadrakumar, former career diplomat and noted commentator . “We should not jump into any conclusion about the next government. All small countries know how to hedge the major powers.”
The Oli government losing the trust vote is something that Indian policy makers think would help their meeting larger goals in Nepal — primarily Madeshi population getting their political dues and China not getting the geopolitical space it has been craving in the country since 2008.
So much so that, the proposed visit of Chinese president Xi Jinping to Nepal on October 16 after attending BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) summit in India to meet Prime Minister Oli has come under cloud now.
Unlike in the past, this time around, things seemed to have worked in line with the script New Delhi would have liked to play out in Nepal, despite the imminent signs of political confusion over installing a new government there.
First of all, the opposition parties — Nepali Congress, CPNMaoist Centre and Madeshi Morcha-led Sanghiya Ghatbandhan, came together to topple the Oli government, and all of them flayed his foreign policy, which New Delhi was upset with.
Oli’s efforts to depend on China for essential supplies came as a cropper. For example, Maoist leader Prachanda in his speech during the non-trust vote debate blamed Oli for not maintaining the right balance between India and China. He also identified foreign policy failure as the principal reason for Oli’s downfall.
Both Prachanda and senior Nepali Congress leader Minendra Raza flayed Oli on the Madeshi question. Another Nepali Congress leader Bharat Shah questioned Oil’s visit to China, which he said brought no benefit to Nepal.
But Oli did his best to ensure that he stayed in power. And resorted to many measures including citing that there are no constitutional provision to install a new government if the one in power is thrown out through a non trust vote.