CK Raut, who had been campaigning for Free Madhesh, made headlines when he was released by the Supreme Court (SC) on date on Thursday. But very few knew that he was in dialogue with the government for one and half months.
Raut went to his elder brother's apartment after being released from the Central Jail at 7:30 in the evening following the Apex Court's order. There were rumors at the prime minister's official residence in Baluwatar later in the night that the government was close to signing an agreement with Raut only after his release.
PM KP Sharma Oli himself started the dialogue process with Raut and nobody apart from fellow CPN Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal and Oli's emissaries knew about the process.
"PM Oli and another chairman Dahal had talked about holding serious dialogue with Raut one and half months back," a leader involved in the dialogue process confided with Setopati. "PM then sent his confidants to hold dialogue with Raut."
The leaders would then go to Raut with the PM's message and relay Raut's response to the PM. This process was held in such secrecy that not all of the nine CPN secretariat members knew about it. The secretariat members were formally informed about the developments only during the secretariat meeting convened Friday morning.
"PM told the secretariat meeting this morning that the government has been holding dialogue with CK Raut and informed that they are joining mainstream politics," CPN Spokesperson and secretariat member Narayan Kaji Shrestha told Setopati. "We did not know about it before that."
Raut had also maintained secrecy about the dialogue. His cadres and followers who reached Rastriya Sabhagriha Friday afternoon said they had arrived after being invited to the place saying there will be dialogue with the government. They had no idea that the dialogue had been going for over a month and already reached conclusion.
A source at the PM's Office said the process was kept a secret to ensure that those who wish to continue to capitalize on the problem of Raut were not able to derail it.
"They have entered mainstream politics accepting territorial integrity of Nepal. This shows the government capacity to bring the aggrieved parties to the fold," a leader, who worked as the PM's emissary, said. "Resolution of this problem is a big achievement. The process is trivial."