Bhattarai quits Maoist party

KATHMANDU, Sept 26: Maoist leader Baburam Bhattarai, one of the key architects of Nepal’s civil war that killed 17,000 people, has quit the party.

Bhattarai organised a press conference in Kathmandu on Saturday to announce his departure from the party, which he formed and nurtured alongside Pushpa Kamal Dahal. Although Dahal has always been at the helm of the UCPN (M), Bhattarai is considered a Maoist ideologue.

Bhattarai, also former Prime Minister, was Vice President of the UCPN (M). He was President of a key panel formed by the Constituent Assembly to seek political consensus on the contentious issues of the constitution.

But Bhattarai was not happy with the final product, he skipped the ceremony organised by the government to celebrate the new constitution and vowed to support the disgruntled Madhesi parties. But many also saw his action as being guided by New Delhi, which has imposed an unofficial blockade against Nepal to press Kathmandu to amend the new constitution.

Bhattrarai had been talking about forming a new political force. But Dahal, in a recent interview with BBC Nepali Service, had dismissed his ‘new political force’ as ‘an old story’.