Janamat Party President CK Raut has said he got a triple shock in the first class of government politics.
In a video interview with Setopati, Raut has said that the first meeting of the parties after CPN (Maoist Center) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal quit the erstwhile coalition with Nepali Congress (NC) and CPN (Unified Socialist), and reached Balkot to form one with CPN-UML was his first class in government politics.
He has said that the first thing to shock him was the helplessness of Dahal whom he considered to be the hero of revolution. "I became a mere spectator as the main leader of the change could be seen trapped there. I kept gazing at Dahal. I didn't speak anything. Such a personality seemed to be trapped there."
He has said that the second shock for him was that the fate of the person (Dahal) on whom millions of people including him had pinned their hopes for change on. "The second shock was seeing their behavior there."
The third shock for him was the realization in his very first class that the Madhesis and indigenous people will not get their rights for the next 150 years. "It was my first meeting with so many top leaders. The kind of mentality I saw at that place, I realized at that very moment that it will take another 150 years for the indigenous people and ethnicities and Tharus to get their rights in this country if such mentality persisted."
He has also explained why the party is considering quitting the Dahal government if it does not get the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supplies as per prior agreement in the coalition. He has pointed that the party has been going to the people with slogans of creating jobs and providing fertilizers to the farmers, and they can address those issues only while leading the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supplies.
He has emphasized that the current ruling coalition has been formed just for sharing the spoils and predicted that it will not last long. "The coalition will keep changing as relevance of the coalition will finish once the sharing of spoils is completed."
He has added that the recent attempts by Dahal to forge national consensus taking NC and Unified Socialist, that voted for him during the floor test, is continuation of the efforts for sharing of spoils.
"I was in the all-party meeting. Issue of national consensus was attempted to be raised there. I said 'Let's not name it national consensus. This is basically sharing of spoils. About which party will get what post. This is not for poverty alleviation, resolving the people's problems or not for any real national consensus.' They talked about finding solution on issues including the posts of president and speaker through national consensus."
He has stressed that UML and Maoist Center are still suspicious about each other, and the all-party meeting called by Dahal for national consensus was a result of that suspicion. He has asserted that the coalition can change in an hour as it happened when Dahal left the coalition with NC to form one with UML, and called it a coalition for posts, one at a time, predicting that president will not be elected from UML.
"I cannot predict exactly. It's only an estimation. There is possibility of a non-UML president in the situation that UML has got the speaker now."
