Nepal’s first President Rambaran Yadav, a doctor-turned-politician who completed most of his education in India, faces the tough task of overseeing the drafting of a new Constitution amid bitter political acrimony and fears of the country slipping back to insurgency with the Maoists being effectively sidelined.The 60-year-old has learnt the fine art of politics from Nepali Congress patriarch B P Koirala and Ganesh Man Singh as also Madhesi leader Ramnarayan Mishra.Also hailing from the Indian-origin Madhesi community, Yadav received his MBBS degree from Kolkata and MD from PGIMER, Chandigarh, spending about 11 years studying in India.After practising medicine for eight years, Yadav joined the Nepali Congress after the 1980 referendum held to choose between the partyless Panchayat system and the multiparty system. Yadav, a three-time MP from Dhanusha, entered Parliament as an NC candidate for the first time in 1991. He was re-elected in 1999 and elected to the Constituent Assembly in the landmark polls on April 10 this year, which saw the Maoists emerging as the single-largest party. A farmer’s son who made a remarkable journey to occupy the highest post in the new-born republic that abolished the 240-year-old monarchy, Yadav said he wants to take the peace process to its logical end and maintain friendly ties with both India and China.
