Nepal democrats? Natwar hopes

Indian external affairs minister K. Natwar Singh is arriving in Nepal on a 24-hour visit on Friday afternoon.

Indian external affairs minister K. Natwar Singh is arriving in Nepal on a 24-hour visit on Friday afternoon. The hurricane tour, besides re-instilling confidence in the Nepalese in their hour of crisis, is expected to clear doubts created by Hindutva leaders about the erstwhile NDA government's policy vis-à-vis King Gyanendra.

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Singh is scheduled to hold separate meetings with King Gyanendra, Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, Nepali Congress chief G P Koirala, Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) general secretary Madhav Nepal, Rashtriya Prajatantra Party president Pashupati Shumsher Rana, ex-PM Surya Bahadur Thapa and senior officials. He is likely to focus on New Delhi's concern over the spillover of the Nepalese crisis.

Foreign affairs analyst Hiranyalal Shrestha remarked, "This is an opportunity for India to reorient the NDA's stand on Nepal that seemed to have been dominated by religion."

Nepalese democrats, who are at loggerheads with King Gyanendra since he unilaterally dismissed an elected government on October 4, 2002, have always resented frequent interactions between representatives of the sangh parivar and the palace. They became more skeptical about the NDA after VHP chief Ashok Singhal publicly vowed here on January 22 to protect the monarch from all dangers. He called the king the "Hindu samraat of the world's 900 million Hindus."