Kathmandu, Dec 26 (PTI) Nepal Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba on Sunday underlined the need to ratify the proposed grant assistance from the US under the Millennium Challenge Corporation by forging consensus among all political parties, asserting that the USD 500 million programme is not against the national interest.
Nepal’s political parties are sharply divided over the issue of whether to accept the US grant assistance under the MCC agreement, which is under consideration in the House of Representatives. Nepal and the United States signed the MCC agreement in 2017.
Under the MCC programme, the US government will provide grant assistance which will be mainly utilised on strengthening Nepal’s transmission line that would facilitate the export of hydroelectricity to India in the near future and also improve the country’s road networks.
The agreement, however, has become a hotly debated political issue in the Himalayan nation, with some parties objecting to it on grounds that the US programme is part of the Indo-Pacific Strategy and its parliamentary ratification would be against Nepal’s national interest.
Speaking at the inaugural session of the 8th general convention of the CPN-Maoist Centre, Deuba stressed the need to ratify the USD 500 million MCC agreement by forging consensus among all political parties.
He rejected the view expressed by some political leaders that the agreement was against the national interest of Nepal, saying: “it is a grant assistance, so there is no question of MCC going against the national interest”.
The Deuba government is under pressure to ratify the programme from the House. However, Deuba’s coalition partner is the Maoist Centre, which has not been positive about the American programme from the very beginning.
The US officials have said that America cannot wait indefinitely for Nepal to endorse the agreement through parliament and expedite implementation of the projects both countries agreed upon in the past.
Nepal was the first country in South Asia to qualify for the programme after it met 16 out of the 20 policy indicators.
The Millennium Challenge Corporation is a bilateral United States foreign aid agency established by the US Congress in 2004. It is an independent agency separate from the State Department and USAID.
Prime Minister Deuba also said no one should doubt the longevity of the five-party ruling coalition.
CPN-Maoist Center chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ also spoke at the convention and said no one should be blamed for the present state of weakness of the party, and that he would go for “self-analysis” to arrive at a conclusion.
Chairman Prachanda, who is presenting a document at the closed session of the party, said his document also includes the impacts of science and technology on socialism, as well as the issues of climate change and the cause of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Our party has concluded that development of science and technology has further widened the gap between the poor and the rich nations,” he said.
Former senior Maoist leader C P Gajurel said reclaiming the land allegedly encroached by India as a pre-condition for forging unity among various factions of the Maoist party.
“The doors for unification between Maoists will open after the encroached land of Kalapani, Lipulekh and Limpyadhura are reclaimed by the CPN (Maoist Center),” he said.
The Lipulekh pass is a far western point near Kalapani, a disputed border area between Nepal and India. Both India and Nepal claim Kalapani as an integral part of their territory – India as part of Uttarakhand’s Pithoragarh district and Nepal as part of Dharchula district.
The bilateral ties came under strain under then Nepal Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli after India opened an 80-km-long strategically crucial road connecting the Lipulekh pass with Dharchula in Uttarakhand on May 8, 2020. India said the road section in Pithoragarh district in Uttarakhand lies completely within its territory.
Nepal protested the inauguration of the road claiming that it passed through its territory. Days later, Nepal came out with a new map showing Lipulekh, Kalapani and Limpiyadhura as its territories.
India reacted sharply to the new political map, calling it a “unilateral act” and cautioning Kathmandu that such “artificial enlargement” of territorial claims will not be acceptable to it.
Narayan Kaji Shrestha, a senior leader of CPN-Maoist Centre, said at the convention that it was the main responsibility of the party to consolidate internal unity so as to prevent foreign interference and to protect the country from any type of external intervention.
“Our party will never bow down before any force on the issue of nationalism,” he said. PTI SBP MRJ MRJ
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