Kathmandu, Though they ended their two-month siege of parliament, Nepal’s former guerrilla party, the Maoists, Friday indicated they would keep up their opposition to the new ruling alliance by rejecting its policies and programmes for the current financial year. “Since this government was formed due to an illegal and unconstitutional step taken by the president (Ram Baran Yadav), its policies and programmes too are illegal and unconstitutional,” veteran Maoist leader and former finance minister Baburam Bhattarai told the media Friday. The top leaders of the once underground party met Friday morning to decide their reaction to the policies, which were presented in parliament Thursday by the president on behalf of the government of Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal. Bhattarai said his party would be holding talks with other parties outside the ruling coalition for a united opposition to the freshly tabled policies. Calling the Nepal government `anti-people’, he said the policies, thoug
KATHMANDU: Nepal’s new government Thursday virtually handed over a gift to ousted king Gyanendra, who turned 62 this week, by shelving the Maoist plan to begin a fresh investigation into the palace massacre that nine years ago enabled him to ascend the throne. When he was prime minister, Maoist chief Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda had said a high-level probe would be initiated into the June 2001 shootout in the Narayanhuty royal palace in which King Birendra and nine more royals perished. Though Birendra’s son Dipendra was held responsible by an inquiry commission, it was rejected by the nation that still considers the killing to be a complex conspiracy. In its policies and programme for the financial year 2009-10, Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal’s government instead settled for a lesser investigation into the properties of the formal royals. “The property belonging to the former royal family, both within the country and abroad, will be investigated and utilized for national benefit,”