“As to why there is an anti India feeling, yes I agree with you that it takes, you know, do hath se talli bajti hai (It takes two hands to clap) and that’s why I’m saying it is something we need to discuss”, Rae said at a press briefing in Kathmandu.
Advertisement
Earlier, expressing concern over the growing anti-India sentiment in Nepal, India’s Ambassador to Nepal Ranjit Rae on Friday said, “We sense that this is being used for certain objective – political or otherwise”. At the Geneva meeting of the UNHRC on Nepal’s Universal Periodic Review, India’s Acting Permanent Representative to the United Nations, B N Reddy said: “The people of Nepal, having endured a devastating quake in April 2015, are facing another tough challenge during the ongoing political transition”.
The Madhesi agitation, over demands to safeguard their interests and more representation in the new Constituion, near the border trade points has been on for more than two months now.
Nepal’s newly elected Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli accuses New Delhi of imposing an “undeclared blockade” to show its dissatisfaction with the new charter.
This is Thapa’s second visit to India, who is also known as a strong pro-Hindu leader of Nepal. Deadly protests erupted in Nepal’s southern Terai region following the constitution’s adoption, and more than 40 died in related violence.
The major demand of the Madheshi protesters is that their territories bordering India must be exclusive Madhesh provinces, without inclusion of hilly Aryan and ethnic groups.
Nepal, however, maintained that India had imposed a blockade. And still there are no indication from the authorities if the obstruction in the supply of essential commodities that has brought Nepal and its economy to a grinding halt, will end soon. He will be returning home on Wednesday.
Advertisement
Nepal gets 60 percent of all imports and almost all of its fuel from India. To begin with, China will fulfill at least a third of Nepal’s requirements.
