Bhattarai's volte face on constitution baffles many

KATHMANDU, Sept 24: Baburam Bhattarai was a leading advocate of drafting a new constitution through the Constituent Assembly (CA). He raised the issue and fought within his party for this agenda even when his party was waging an armed insurgency to capture state power.

Dr Bhattarai's agenda eventually prevailed and the then underground Maoists embarked on a new journey of peace and democracy.


Given his struggle for peace and constitution over the years, many expected Bhattarai to be the happiest person to see the new constitution promulgated from the CA.

But this assumption proved wrong as Bhattarai, apparently unhappy with the new statute, has been avoiding all programs organized to welcome the new constitution.

Dr Bhattarai deliberately avoided a function organized by the major three political parties to mark the celebration of the new constitution, keeping himself busy instead on holding factional meeting at his residence with dissident leaders in Madhes on Monday.

Even as ordinary people applaud UCPN (Maoist) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal for his role in the promulgation of new constitution through the CA, Bhattarai has appeared reluctant to take the ownership of the constitution.

"He is unhappy because the constitution fails to provide justice to the Tharu and Madhesi peoples. He believes that political leadership should seek political solution to the current problems," said Bishowdeep Pandey, Bhattarai's personal secretary.

Bhattarai declined to join the three-party meeting held at the prime minister's official residence in Baluwatar on Tuesday. On Wednesday, he organized a meeting of some civil society members, following which he issued a statement saying that it was a serious issue that a large number of people who fought for change are not accepting the new constitution.

Bhattarai, who was chairman of the CA's vital Constitutional Political Dialogue and Consensus Committee, skipped the group photo session of the CA members after signing in the new constitution last week.

Mani Thapa, who was one of the Maoist leaders seconding Bhattarai's idea of peace and constitution during the Maoists armed insurgency, claims that the new constitution succeeds on achieving major goals of the 12-point agreement between the then seven political parties and the Maoists. "Federal Democratic Republic was the main goal of the Maoists when the party joined the peace talks in the past and the party has succeeded in achieving that goal," Thapa said.

The Maoists had decided to join the other parliamentary parties after endorsing Bhattarai's line of achieving federal democratic republic through the CA during the much-talked about Chunuwang meeting in September 2005. But his recent activities have prompted many to doubt whether Bhattarai will remain in the party.

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