RAW, IB chiefs in hectic parleys with leaders of political spectrum

Senior officials of the security and intelligence establishment are camping in Kathmandu to ramp up support for India ahead of the crucial meeting of the powerful Standing Committee of the ruling Nepal Communist Party on Wednesday to decide on the fate of Nepalese Prime Minister KP Oli.

Chief of Research and Analysis Wing Samant Kumar Goel and Intelligence Bureau chief Arvind Kumar are involved in hectic parleys with leaders of the political spectrum there. The Chinese ambassador in Kathmandu too is personally meeting the Nepalese leaders, top sources said here.

The confabulations by Goel and Kumar with the Nepalese politicians is being undertaken as a damage-control exercise post-Constitutional amendment to include Indian territories of Lipulekh, Kalapani and Limpiyadhura in the map of Nepal. The talks by the Intelligence chiefs are being directly monitored by National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, the sources said.

Talks have so far been held with Nepal Comnunist Party leaders Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda, Madhav Kumar Nepal, Jhalanath Khanal, Narayan Kaji Shrestha and Keshav Prasad Badal among others. The officials also talked to Barsaman Pun, Shankar Pokharel (considered close to Oli) and Dr Rajan Bhattarai (Oli’s advisor on foreign affairs).

President of Nepali Congress Sher Bahadur Deuba and other party colleagues Dr Minendra Rijal, Vimlendra Nidhi and Krishna Sitaula have also been contacted by the top officials of the Indian covert agencies, the sources said.

Leaders of Madhesi Party Mahant Thakur, Upendra Yadav and Dr Baburam Bhattarai have also been covered in the talks.

Amid the outreach by India, Chinese Ambassador in Kathmandu Hou Yanqi, a former intelligence chief of Europe Sector of Beijing’s spy agency, also met a slew of leaders including Prachanda, Nepal and Khanal among others.

India has a deep-rooted civilisational and cultural ties with Nepal but the amendment in the Nepalese map seeks to threaten the ties between the two nations even as New Delhi has initiated high-level communication to limit the erosion of trust and bring the ties on track, the sources added.

Meanwhile, the Nepal Samajbadi Party has decided to recall party leader Saraita Giri Giri for defying the party whip to endorse the constitutional amendment by Nepalese Parliament to revisit the map. The party has decided to sack her from her position as a lawmaker and the party member.

During the last one year, India’s external agency’s role has been found to be wanting as it could not get an inkling of the introduction of six bills in the European Parliament against India over the CAA issue. Likewise, the map issue in Nepal also went unnoticed as preemptive measures could not be taken. The agency also could not monitor the congregations of Tabligh Jamat held in the neighbourhood and extended neighbourhood and their suspected role in spreading Covid-19 in India.