KATHMANDU, JAN 11 - Leaders belonging to the five-party alliance today expressed diametrically opposite views on the recent instances of King Gyanendra holding meetings with top leaders of some political parties.
While the CPN-UML leader Bam Dev Gautam said that the meeting between CPN-UML General Secretary Madhav Kumar Nepal and the king has thrown up positive signals, Nepali Congress (NC) and People’s Front Nepal (PFN) leaders Narhari Acharya and Navraj Subedi, respectively, have billed the same as futile exercise.In fact, they flayed the king’s politics of granting audience, adding that it has been undertaken with the "ulterior motive of disrupting the student demonstration" which is picking up momentum."What we know is the only way out is striking a unity of purpose with the king," Gautam said at the Reporters’ Club in the capital today, adding that it was up to the people to take a departure from the current policy of reconciliation with king.He also said that since the king is a representative of traditional forces, what the parties could do now is try to strike a unity of purpose. Gautam also expressed the view that it was not the right time to root for republican democracy "since none of the parties are going for it yet".
But Subedi of PFN poked fun at the politics of audience and said that his party would never go for it as long as it feels that nothing is going to issue out of it. "The fact that our leader Amik Sherchan did go to meet the king in the past suggests that we are not opposed to meet king in principle," he said. A few days ago, Sherchan has refused to meet the king.
Subedi also said that monarchy has never changed, defying even nature. In fact, he said this by way of criticising the king for keeping the regression alive and kicking, with Crown Prince Paras going around. "It should be missing on no one that our monarch is going authoritarian," he said.
Similarly, NC’s Acharya expressed the view that the latest meeting between leaders and the king was umpteenth in the "regressive" series and the latest as long as the next round does not take place. "There is no point in such meetings. In fact, the king would do well to talk with the parties with their agenda on his table, rather than the other way round," Acharya said.Posted on: 2004-01-12 04:04

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