CPN (Maoist Center) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal has left for India on a three-day visit at the invitation of JP Nadda, the national president of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
Talking to journalists before flying to New Delhi on Friday afternoon, Dahal said that he was very excited to visit India.
“This is a goodwill visit,” said Dahal. “I’m going to India with a lot of excitement.”
He added that he would discuss all issues of Nepal-India relations with India’s political leadership during his visit.
Dahal also said that his visit was not sudden.
“There had been talks of an India visit even when Vinay Mohan Kwatra was the ambassador in Kathmandu. He later contacted me after becoming India’s foreign secretary too. I had said that I could visit in the second or third week of July after checking the party’s programs,” said Dahal. “This visit is not sudden.”
Dahal’s India visit comes only days after Liu Jianchao, the head of the International Liaison Department of the Communist Party of China, visited Kathmandu.
Liu met with top leaders including Dahal, Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba and CPN-UML Chairman KP Sharma Oli during his four-day visit.
Asked whether he was caught in a tug-of-war between China and India in this context, Dahal said that his objective was to maintain good relations with both countries.
“The head of the International Liaison Department of the Chinese Communist Party has invited me to visit China. He has said that I should visit China as corona [sic] is about to end,” said Dahal. “I’m also visiting China soon.”
