An alliance meeting on Saturday decided to further intensify the protests at a time when the government is holding talks with some of the dissident political parties that have announced a boycott of constituent assembly polls to be conducted by the present government of bureaucrats. [break]The government claims that it has been holding talks with the Baidya-led party as well through informal channels.
"In the past, we were liberal about holding talks with the president even as we turned down offers of talks with the government and the HLPC. But now we see no relevance in keeping open the option of dialogue with the president," Mani Thapa, a leader from the alliance, told Republica. "We reached this conclusion as President Ram Baran Yadav took no initiative to hold talks with the 33-party alliance and didn´t take our demands seriously."
The Baidya-led alliance has rejected talks with the government talks team and the HLPC comprising leaders from the UCPN (Maoist), Nepali Congress (NC), CPN-UML and United Democratic Madhesi Front (UDMF).
The alliance, which has announced a boycott of polls to be conducted by the present government, has demanded formation of a political government based on a broad political agreement and has termed the HLPC a four-party syndicate with no constitutional legitimacy.
The alliance meeting on Saturday decided to launch a 14-day nationwide awareness campaign to promote and protect "national sovereignty and independence".
"The main objective of this campaign is to protest the recent decision to relax conditions for the distribution of citizenship certificates as well as foreign interference in domestic affairs," he explained.
Thapa said a group of leaders and party members will start a march toward the west from Kakadvitta in the far-eastern part of the country while another group will march eastward from a far-western point.
The groups will travel to the major towns in Madhes districts and stage demonstrations there. "Party leaders will converge in a mass gathering in Narayanghat, stage demonstrations there and arrive in Kathmandu," Thapa said. "The campaign will conclude in Kathmandu on May 28."
During the campaign, alliance leaders will also stage protests in Biratnagar to demand that the Indian side remove its "field office" established there some years ago.
The meeting further decided to support the indefinite general strike imposed in some districts in the eastern part of the country by the Limbuwan State Council, which is in the alliance.
The alliance plans to launch more aggressive protests if their demands aren´t addressed by the end of May.
Meanwhile, Baidya said on Saturday that his party would not hold talks with the present government, the HLPC or even the president.
Baidya told media in Kathmandu that there was no point negotiating with the government talks team and HLPC leaders "as they have shown no flexibility and initiative toward addressing our demands." He, however, clarified that they could hold informal talks with President Yadav.
Baidya said his party and the alliance would be ready for dialogue only after the other side is ready to scrap the 11-point deal reached among the HLPC´s constituent parties and the 25-point ordinance for removing constitutional difficulties, and is also ready to form a new political government based on a broader political agreement. The two political deals had paved the way for the formation of the present government.
The government talks team led by Minister for Home and Foreign Affairs Madhav Ghimire recently held some rounds of talks separately with the Ashok Rai-led Federal Socialist Party and the Upendra Yadav-led seven-party alliance, Federal Democratic Forum.
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