Kathmandu, Jun 20 (PTI) The Nepal government has instructed its embassy in New Delhi to ascertain facts and send a report on the mural installed in the new Indian Parliament building which has created a controversy in the Himalayan nation, the country’s foreign minister said on Tuesday.
Answering questions raised by lawmakers, Foreign Minister N.P. Saud during the federal parliament’s International Relations Committee (IRC) meeting on Tuesday said that Minister for External Affairs S. Jaishankar had already made India’s stance official that the map was a cultural one and did not involve any political issue.
“The mural installed in the newly constructed Indian parliament building depicts the expanded territory of Indian emperor Ashoka during his reign,” the foreign minister told the parliamentary committee.
“After discussing with the Indian side, instructions have already been issued to the Nepalese Embassy to send a report on the matter,” Saud said while answering questions raised in the House of Representatives IRC about the recent official visit by Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal “Prachanda” to India.
The Indian government has relayed its official position about the mural which includes Lumbini, Kapilvastu and other places, he said.
The issue has drawn a huge uproar in Kathmandu. However, Nepal Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal “Prachanda” has said that during his visit to New Delhi, the Indian side had clarified that it was a cultural map and not a political one.
Prachanda had made the remarks in Parliament when the opposition lawmakers slammed him for not raising the issue of the ‘Akhanda Bharat’ map, which, they claimed, also consists of Nepal’s territory.
India has downplayed the issue of a mural in the new Parliament building, describing it as an artwork that depicted the spread of the prehistoric Ashokan empire. Prachanda visited India from May 31 to June 3, his first official trip abroad since assuming office in December 2022.
The ties between India and Nepal came under severe strain after Kathmandu published a new political map in 2020 that showed three Indian territories — Limpiyadhura, Kalapani and Lipulekh — as part of Nepal.
India reacted sharply, calling it a “unilateral act” and cautioned Kathmandu that such “artificial enlargement” of territorial claims will not be acceptable to it.
Nepal is important for India in the context of its overall strategic interests in the region, and the leaders of the two countries have often noted the age-old “Roti Beti” relationship.
The country shares a border of over 1,850 km with five Indian states – Sikkim, West Bengal, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.
Land-locked Nepal relies heavily on India for the transportation of goods and services.
The India-Nepal Treaty of Peace and Friendship of 1950 forms the bedrock of the special relations between the two countries. PTI SBP PY AKJ PY PY
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