Dr Bhattarai, somewhat in a partisan way, got the assent of President Ram Baran Yadav for amnesty for the Maoist lawmaker. UCPN(M) politburo member Agni Prasad Sapkota, while speaking at a programme on ‘PM’s Views, Comprehensive Peace Accord, Seven-point Deal’ under the aegis of Media Vision Nepal on Monday claimed that ‘comrade Dhungal was innocent and that Ujjan Kumar Shrestha was killed as per party’s decision because of spying against the party for the then security authorities and hence Dhungel was innocent. He even snapped fingers at the human rights activists and organisations who were trying to defame the people’s war by taking this issue to the International Court of Justice, Hague.

But snubbing Dr Bhattarai and President Yadav, the apex court directed the President not to act on the government recommendation to pardon Maoist lawmaker, until November 21 when the SC will deliberate on the controversial recommendation. The victim’s sister Sabitri Shrestha filed a writ petition to the SC challenging the amnesty move.

The most formidable opposition came from the second largest group in the CA, United Democratic Madhesi Front, that demanded that if the pardon be granted, amnesty be extended to over half of Madhesi activists – including legislators. General Secretary of Madhesi People´s Rights Forum-Republican (MPRF-R) Atmaram Sah endorsed the point and asked the government to withdraw cases filed against Madhesis after the Madhes movement. MPRF (democrats) senior vice-chair Rameshwor Ray Yadav asserted that its CA members would push for the Inclusion Bill in the parliament for initiating the process of recruiting Madhesi youths into the Nepal Army.

Meanwhile, Nepali Congress fronts, Nepal Women´s Association and Nepal Students´ Union jointly organized a protest rally in Kathmandu criticising the PM’s recommendation to the president to pardon lawmaker Dhungel. The CP of Nepal (United Marxist-Leninist)-led All Nepal National Free Students´ Union and Nepali Congress´ Nepal Students´ Union held a torch rally in the national capital and burnt an effigy of the PM on the same issue.

Organisational crisis inside the UCPN(M) is also on the broil. Dr Bhattarai and the party chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal a k a Prachanda are at loggerheads on the modalities of implementing the seven-point peace process, while the two are in opposing polarities in the factional battle. Editorial of an English daily, close to the ruling Maoists, wrote, ”One also sees the other as an arc-rival when it comes to power. The Bhattarai camp suspects that Dahal has once again reached out to the Baidya faction to oust him from power and is quietly holding the peace process from moving ahead swiftly.” It sees the red in the growing spat between the leaders who had an excellent camaraderie even until the exit of Dahal and suggested, “Bhattarai and Dahal must reach out to each other for a frank discussion and the sooner they realize that their best interest lies in the successful conclusion of the peace process and constitution writing the better it is. Otherwise, both of them will be discredited.”

International interests aren’t sitting idle to cash in on the growing schism inside the UCPN(M). The Bhutanese refugees under political asylum in the US are gearing up for a thrust. A US embassy cable, scooped by WikiLeaks in 2007 expressed Washington’s concern over Maoist organizing in the Bhutanese refugee camps, as well as the potential for communists to gain power in Bhutan. Possibilities of retaliation from an obtuse angle using the Bhutanese émigrés in the US cannot be ruled out. The pressure for resettlement of those émigrés is mounting. One cannot be unmindful of the hard reality that unemployment in many parts of the land-locked State is more than 20 per cent. (IPA Service)