I am not a member of any political parties but I must admit that I am an extreme supporter of democracy. I choose a candidate on the basis of his/her personal ideology, background, character and persistency rather than to go through the dexterously written manifesto of his/her political party. So, in the scenario of Nepalese politics, I am not a member of an opponent party of Nepali Congress, nor am I a hater of the person I am judging here.

The person who deserves the title of this article is Mr. Sher Bahadur Deuba, who served as Nepalese premier in three different occasions. One might ask me why I directly pinpointed to Sher Bahadur Deuba and placed him into a position of “one of the failed premiers in the history of Nepal.”

Following the termination of Panchayat regime in BS 2046, Nepalese People mandated full majority to Nepali Congress to rule the country in the general election of BS 2047. Prior to the full term of five years being matured as allocated by the Nepali Constitution of 2047, the erstwhile Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala was compelled to declare the mid-term election because Sher Bahadur Deuba’s nearest and dearest 36 friends lobbied in the party and created a non-trusting environment to each other within the party.

In the mid-term election of 1994, the UML party became the biggest party and they were mandated to form the executive power under the leadership of late Manmohan Adhikari, the only Prime Minister in the history of Nepal whom nobody could put a logical question mark against. The most progressive, liberal and innovative economic policy of the UML lasted barely 8 months because again Sher Bahadur Deuba started dirty campaign to sack Manmohan Adhikari. Not only did he sack Manmohan but also brought back the most corrupted Mandales of the Panchayat regime, who had ruled the country over 29 years, in power. History is there the Mandales looted the country, killed thousands of innocent people and what not. Personally Mr. Deuba along with his power hungry panels forgot all the extreme and brutal penalization upon them by the Mandales in the past. They could not even think of what was the reason the entire country was luring for in the democratic movement of BS 2046. Moreover, the nastiest thing is the Maoists bloody war which started while Sher Bahadur Deuba was the Premier. The reason behind the civil war was that Mr. Deuba indirectly reinstated the panchayat regime by forming a coalition government with RPP (the party of Panches – Mandales). The Mandales along with Mr. Deuba’s allies started looting the country and plunged Nepal to third poorest country of the world. People became so frustrated with power-changing-game. Who did take the advantage of political instability of such unfair power sharing game? The Maoists. If Mr. Deuba was a smart politician, he should have brought the Maoists on the table for peace talk right away before that led to a severe civil war for ten years. I clearly remembered that Mr. Chandra Shekhar, a prominent politician from India, suggested Mr. Deuba that the symptom should be prevented before it turns into a disease. On the contrary, he thought that he could control the Maoist rebels through gun and bomb. His undermining of Maoists violence cost thousands of life; tens of thousands of people fled the country from being persecuted at the hands of Maoists and Royal Nepalese Army; and, people in thousands were forced to be domestic refugees all over the country. 

Mr. Deuba again became the prime minister after the notorious royal palace massacre of June 2001. Moreover, he broke the oldest democratic party of Nepal, Nepali Congress, into two. There were various dramas started in Nepal: the Maoists were fighting against the Royal Nepal Army and Police, and the cadres of Nepali Congress were trying to kill each other from Mechi to Mahakali. Probably the king Gyanendra could not see such naked drama in Nepal, so that he sacked Mr. Deuba from his chair. King Gyanendra attempted to show another drama by reinforcing his father Mahendra’s type of oligarchic regime.

Nepal’s close allies including the United States, the UK and India overestimated Mr. Deuba’ capabilities to handle the country all the time because of his wife, Arju Deuba,’s connection to worldwide diplomats. So, after having immense pressure from the foreign allies, King Gyanendra again brought Mr. Deuba in power. On the other hand, the Maoist violence approached to its highest climax ever. Informally they had captured Nepal except the Kathmandu valley.

In order to avoid from being dethroned by the Maoists, he hastily sacked Sher Bahadur Deuba again in February 2005. He brought such people, who laundered millions of dollars by cheating the government banks, and were exiled to foreign countries from being charged on that account. Mr. King had got technically unqualified advisors as such his each and every political step was disdainful to the ordinary Nepalese people. As a consequence to that Mr. King was not only dethroned but ended the history of Shaha dynasty. On the other hand, because of Mr. Deuba’s stubbornness and power hungry nature, his party Nepali Congress ended of having 37 seats at the recently held Constitution Assembly election comparing to 120 seats of Maoists.

Following the election Mr. Deuba was endorsing Mr. Girija Girija Koirala, saying that the Nepali Congress should lead the upcoming government since Mr. Koirala successfully held the Constituent Election. Again, Mr. Deuba has said that the government should be formed on the basis of majority. The grand plan of Mr. Deuba is to make prime minister from his party or a party that could be political ally to Nepali Congress party, and conspire as much as possible to be prime minister himself in the subsequent days.

I hope Mr. Deuba’s endorsement and grand plan will not be enforced in Nepalese politics as to undermine the streams of Nepali voice at this time.

(Note from the Nepal Horizons Editorial Team: The views and opinion expressed in this article are that of the author and not of NHC. We request individuals with interest in Nepal to submit their views on contemporary Nepalese issues to the following e-mail address: editor@nepalhorizons.com.  Pictures of contributors or images that relate to submissions are welcome)