NEPAL'S TOP MAOIST UNDER FIRE FOR LUXURY MANSION
KATHMANDU, Jan 30, 2012 (AFP) -Nepal's top Maoist politician, who led a 10-year insurgency in the Himalayan country which left 16,000 people dead, was accused Monday of selling out after moving into a lavish mansion in Kathmandu.
Pushpa Kamal Dahal, who goes by the nom-de-guerre Prachanda (The Fierce One), is a for mer Communist
guer- rilla who rose from humble village beginnings to lead a “people's war” against Nepal's royal family and its political elites.
The rented 15room property -1,500 square metres (16,000 sq feet) of prime real estate near the bustling city centre -- includes parking space for more than a dozen vehicles and a table tennis room, his office told AFP.
“The Maoists have deviated from their stated goal. It used to be socialism but now
they have sur- rendered to bourgeois state power,” said Mumaram Khanal, a political analyst and former Maoist leader.
“It is natural in such a situation to transfor m into someone with the characteristics of a member of parliamentary politics. They are revolutionary only in words, not in deeds.”prachanda, 58, grew up in a family of far mers in souther n Nepal, teaching in gover nment schools before being indoctrinated in socialist philosophy by Nepal's communist leaders.
In 1996, after witnessing the plight of the poor in the village where he grew up, he led a Maoist insurgency which culminated in the overthrow of the Shah dynasty in 2008.