Royalists offer to join hands with Maoists against India

KATHMANDU: Charging that India was conspiring to prevent the formation of a new Maoist led government in Nepal, the ex-royalists today offered to join hands with the former ultras to form a united front.

Alleging that New Delhi was backing an anti-Maoist alliance of other parties, Kamal Thapa, a former Nepalese home minister and president of Rastriya Prajatantra Party, which is a pro-royalist group has urged the UCPN-Maoist to join forces with his party to fight against India.

Speaking in Palpa district of western Nepal he even suggested the Maoists to declare India and the ruling parties of Nepal as the main enemy and remain wary of them.

He claimed that India would not allow the Maoists to form a government even if they secure majority in the Parliament.

It was India that foiled the Maoists' efforts to form a new government when the party was about to materialise its plan to form a new government, Thapa said.

Thapa's remarks came at a time when Maoist chief Prachanda has addressing his cadres in the plenum being organised in Gorkha district saying that "we should be ready for a people's revolt to fight possible foreign intervention."

Foreign stooges, domestic feudalism and Indian expansionism have become our class enemy today, he pointed out. Thapa also claimed that the Maoists were attempting to join hand with the then King but the latter had rejected the idea.

Meanwhile, Maoist hardliner leader Mohan Vaidya Kiran was quoted as saying by Republica, English daily that the party (Maoist) should develop solid links with the Indian Naxalites and that will help the Maoists of both the countries fight against the ruling class.