KATHMANDU: Nepalese Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal, also known as Prachanda, will be on a three-day state visit to India from September 15. The visit is expected to mark the return to normalcy in Kathmandu-New Delhi relations after the tensions of the past one year.
Apart from discussions on the situation in the Terai areas, the visit is expected to focus on expediting India-Nepal joint ventures, particularly the hydropower and highway construction projects. Significantly, this will be the maiden foreign visit of Dahal during his present prime ministerial tenure. He succeeded K P Oli in August. Oli’s maiden foreign visit was to China. Dahal, who heads the Maoists, had also opted to visit Beijing in his first term, as his country’s Prime Minister in 2008-09.
To ensure good relations with both its big neighbours, Nepal is slated to host Chinese President Xi Jinping and President of India Pranab Mukherjee in quick succession later this year. Dahal has indicated that his government would be mindful of India’s geostrategic concerns. His government is supported by the Nepali Congress and the United Democratic Madhesi Front, a coalition of Terai-based Madhesi parties. The leaders of both these parties are known to have warm relations with Indian political leadership.
Nepalese Foreign Minister Prakash Sharan Mahat recently told the Kathmandu Post that Dahal’s visit would be an effort to build trust between India and Nepal, which had dampened in recent times. In another development, Dahal reappointed Deep Kumar Upadhyay as his country’s Ambassador to India. Oli’s government had recalled Upadhyay in May on suspicion of his India tilt and brokering talks between Nepali Congress and Madhesi leaders.
Dahal’s visit is set to revive the good vibes in India-Nepal relations, after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s bilateral visit to Nepal in August 2014 and later in November of that year to attend the Saarc (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) Summit. Relations had later soured when Kathmandu bristled at what it considered to be New Delhi’s interference in the drafting of its new Constitution and later accused India to have engineered an economic blockade in the wake of Madhesi protests.
During Dahal’s visit, New Delhi is likely to announce more assistance for construction of houses for those affected by the April 2015 earthquake. The earthquake had, according to one estimate, caused damage worth $10 billion, which is half of Nepal’s gross domestic product. Nepal would also seek New Delhi’s help for the early completion of the Naumure 250-megawatt (Mw) hydropower project on the Rapti, the Pancheshwar 3,600-Mw multipurpose project and other such projects. India might also help Nepal build a police academy and a polytechnic.
