On eve of King’s visit, Nepal parties fear he may get Delhi to strengthen his hands

The visit, barely three months after the one by Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, will take him and Queen Komal to Delhi and four states bordering Nepal—Uttar Pradesh, Uttaranchal, Bihar and West Bengal.

The visit would help him assess how much of a threat do insurgent Maoists on both sides pose to the two countries. There are indications that New Delhi has said a polite no to the King’s political ambition everytime it has been expressed.

But this time, in the week preceding the visit, the King resorted to an unprecedented PR exercise, granting interviews to Indian journalists—they were mostly from the four states—with clearly loaded political messages.

For India, the message is that he will try to understand the Indian mind on the Maoists problem. In short, implying that the Indian stance so far has not been adequate.

On the home front, the limitation of constitutional monarchy does not stop him from doing what he needs to for the ‘well being of his subjects’. This has heightened anxiety here that the King still wants a larger role for himself, never mind what India or the international community may have advised him against.

Quietly responding to criticism from senior political leaders that he was charting out his visit agenda by keeping the Foreign Affairs Ministry in the dark, the King has spent the last two days in discussing the visit with former prime ministers and various party chiefs.

Home Minister Purna Bahadur Khadka and Foreign Secretary Madhuraman Acharya will be among the 30 in the King’s delegation.

The 11-day visit, on the invitation of President A P J Abdul Kalam, takes place at a time when India has told Nepal to get its army moving by taking a more strident line against the Maoists.

Nepal recently increased the strength of its army to 78,000 to combat the nine-year old insurgency which has resulted in more than 10,000 deaths (Maoists and civilians account for nearly 8,000 dead).

The King has also been at loggerheads with political parties who allege that he has ‘appropriated’ power at the cost of democracy. The country has been without an elected parliament for the last 30 months and there are no signs of early elections.