Nepal's tough talk against India sign of despair: Experts

Biswonath Upadhyaya (L) ex-chairman of the Constitution drafting committee returns home with his colleagues after being barred from meeting with Nepali Congress (NC) president and former Nepalese prime minister Girija Prasad Koirala at Maharajgunj near Kathmandu yesterday. Koirala (82) has been under house arrest since February 1 when King Gyanendra dismissed a four-party coalition government and imposed emergency rule. PHOTO: AFP

Tulsi Giri, King Gyanendra's senior-most deputy in the government, had also accused India of being oblivious to the threat posed by Maoist guerrillas.

"The Maoists have links with the LTTE (Sri Lanka's Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam guerrillas), People's War and Naxalites. How can India be oblivious of this and talk about the political system here?" Giri had said in Kathmandu on Thursday.

While officials were studying the import of his remarks, seasoned Nepal watchers minced no words in faulting Kathmandu for its "irresponsible" statement.

Maharajkumar Rasgotra, a former foreign secretary, described the utterances of Giri as an "act of despair."

"We should just ignore it. The king will be much weaker after the crisis. The monarchy can vanish for all you know," Rasgotra told IANS.

Maj. Gen (retd.) Ashok Mehta, a strategic expert on South Asia, read it as a sign of a "tottering monarchy" trying to talk tough.

"This shows the frustration and desperation of the current dispensation. His statements show how badly out of sync he is with real-politick on the international stage," Mehta said.

"The man (Tulsi Giri) who took political nirvana 35 years ago is now making wild statements that does no good to his image or credibility. The best thing for India would be not to take his loose allegations seriously," he said.