KATHMANDU, March 15: Nepal Communist Party (NCP) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal has disclosed that government agencies have informed him about the plans of the outlawed outfit led by Netra Bikram Chand to assassinate him.

“I had heard about their [Chand outfit’s] plan. But today I was informed by the government side as well. They have the minutes of a decision that says Prachanda [Dahal] should be assassinated at first. They made me number one in the hit list. I was told that they have also assigned a team to carry out this task,” said the former chairman of the then rebel CPN (Maoist), at a function organized in Kathmandu Thursday. 

The government earlier this week outlawed the activities of the Chand-led outfit after the latter stepped up its acts of violence in various parts of the country.

Addressing a gathering at Koteshwar of those who lost kin during the 10-year Maoist armed insurgency, Dahal said it was a very wrong assumption on the part of Chand to plan his assassination to institutionalize the federal democratic republic.

“I feel pity for those friends including Biplav [Chand], who was my office secretary when we were together during the insurgency,” he said. 

Dahal argued that the path of political violence adopted by Chand was completely out of season and that Chand was just trying to emulate him, Dahal. Chand was a key second-rung leader of the erstwhile CPN (Maoist). After the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Accord in 2006, Dahal and other leaders joined mainstream politics. But a section of hardline Maoists were against the pact and they afterward formed a separate party to challenge some aspects of it.

“The times have changed since we began the insurgency. This is not 1996. There is no king now. We now have a political system with inclusive proportional representation for women, Dalits, the Janajati and other minority groups,” he said. “And, there is a government run by the same friends who fought together in the past.”

He also argued that Chand can’t become like him, and that no copycat ever succeeded in doing anything big. 

“King Gyanendra tried to copy his father King Mahendra [in imposing an autocratic system] and was later compelled to renounce everything and leave the palace,” he said. “It turned out to be nothing more than a farcical play.” 

Dahal was trying to explain at length that just as King Gyanendra failed to copy his father’s moves of over 43 years back, Chand was repeating the same mistake in trying to copy the Maoist tactics that he, Dahal, used two decades ago. He was bound to fail.

 
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