Kathmandu: A top Madhesi leader from a
Terai-based party has threatened to launch an agitation if the
Nepal government fails to provide Hindi the official language
status and give greater rights to the community living in the
plains bordering India.
Nepal's Terai plains are home to about half of the
country's 27 million people, and the residents of the region,
known as Madhesis, have long complained of discrimination by
the country's hill communities.
Former Foreign Minister Upendra Yadav, the President
of the Madhesi People's Rights Forum, handed over a nine-point
memorandum to Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal urging him to
fulfil its political and economic demands, including providing
Hindi the official language status at the earliest.
"We’ll be forced to go ahead with the agitation,
unless our demands are met," stated the memorandum, which was
presented to the Prime Minister yesterday.
The MPRF, which is the fourth largest party
in the 601-strong Constituent Assembly, has urged the
CPN-UML-led government to recognise Hindi as the official
language and reinstate Madhesi leader Parmananda Jha to the
post of Vice-president.
Jha has remained passive after he refused to take oath
in Nepali as per the Supreme Court's order. The government has
withdrawn all facilities, including security guards, from Jha
after the language row.
"The Prime Minister has urged us not to initiate a
fresh agitation since the government is looking into the
demands," a leader of the delegation was quoted as saying in
the media.
The pro-Terai parties argue that people in the
Madhesi-dominated southern plains have long been treated as
second-class citizens in Nepal, where hill-origin elites
dominate politics, the security forces and business.
The eight-point agreement with the GP Koirala-led
government includes declaring the Terai plains an autonomous
region and greater representation for the Madhesi community in
the state structure, including the army and the police
proportionate to their population.
Yadav has asked Prime Minister Nepal to form a
national consensus government.
The current political crisis in the country cannot be
resolved by excluding any major party from the government, the
former foreign minister pointed out hinting at the Maoists,
who have embarked on an agitation to stall the 22-party
coalition.
If the Prime Minister cannot form a national
consensus government then he should pave way for forming a new
government, Yadav said, adding his party was willing to join a
national consensus government.
He, however, dissociated himself from the Maoists'-led
agitation, saying "we don’t have any plan to form an alliance
with the Maoists.
"Our road is different from that of the Maoist, Yadav
pointed out.
Bureau Report