Kathmandu: For Madhav Kumar Nepal, life
has come a full circle.
The moderate Communist leader who became Prime
Minister of the nascent republic of Nepal last year was forced
to quit by Maoists whose government he had replaced.
The 57-year-old, whose family migrated from Bihar to
Nepal more than 200 years ago, had replaced the powerful
Maoist supremo Prachanda, whose resignation as prime minister
after a bitter dispute with the President Ram Baran Yadav
plunged Nepal into a political crisis.
Born in a Brahmin family in southern Nepal`s Gaur
district on March 6, 1953, Nepal came to Sitamarhi in Bihar
for studies but had to return after some time due to illness.
Nepal, who had been the General Secretary the moderate
Communist Party of Nepal-United Marxist Leninist from 1993
till 2008.
Involved in the Communist movement since 1969, Nepal,
who is said to have been inspired by noted Indian scholar
Rahul Sankrityayan and Russian revolutionary writer Maxim
Gorky, had been a deputy prime minister in the nine-month-old
CPN-UML-led minority government in 1994 and a leader of
opposition in the National Assembly.
Considered a confident and prudent politician, Nepal
suffered a blow when CPN-UML ended at third spot -- behind the
Maoists and Nepali Congress -- in the April 10, 2007
Constituent Assembly elections and lost in both the
constituencies he was contesting from.
Nepal, who had been the head of the main Constitution
Drafting Committee, could not take the peace process forward
in the face of intense opposition from the Maoists, leading to
his resignation.
Nepal did his graduation in Commerce from the
Tribhuvan University in 1973 and worked in banking and civil
service before turning to full-time politics.
Well-versed in English, Hindi, Maithili and Bhojpuri
besides his mother tongue Nepali, Madhav Nepal was the
founding member and politburo member of CPN-ML in 1978.
He participated in the 1990 movement for restoration
of democracy under the banner of United Left Front of Nepal.
He actively took part in the people`s movement of 2006
that ended the king`s 240-year-long absolute rule and was one
of the leaders who put his signature in the 12-point agreement
between the Maoists and the political parties in November 2005
which brought the former rebels to the political mainstream.
PTI
