editNepali skepticism is so all pervasive that yet another orchestration of Nepali politics this week is being analyzed from so many contradictory corners projecting the distrust that is rampant. If the last round focused on the Tarai, Tarai parties, the elections and the government coalition, this round goes to Kathmandu, the elections, the RPP and the government coalition strengthened by RPP participation. The public claim by the RPP that they entered government to make the local level elections possible is lent credence to by their weight in legislative numbers which helped prop the Maoist Centre-Congress led government after the withdrawal of support by the Tarai parties to the government given the alleged government excesses in Saptari. Whether there is more to the Election Commission’s rejection of the RPP charter advocating the inclusion of the Hindu identity and the Monarchy as anti-constitutional, in effect, asking for its removal to qualify for the elections is thus an inevitable ponderable today. To boot, the exacerbation of the issue by deliberate and harsh police crackdown of the party’s street demonstration in front of the Election Commission office in central Kathmandu does add to the many possibilities of heightened speculation. Not all is what it seems, perhaps. In the first place, the RPP agenda was brought under legal focus a decade back in the milieu of RPP Nepal’s registration as a participant before the elections to the first constituent assembly. It is now not only the fourth largest party in the legislature but also the third largest in government. That the party has just been strengthened through unification with the mother RPP in preparation for the local elections which it supports would have made the issue virtually redundant had it not been for the fact that the Election Commission cites the environmental change in the promulgation of the constitution under which the local level elections are to take place. This would mean that the RPP is unable to participate under its current charter in the local elections and is unable to change its charter which has just been committed to by its leadership in he recently concluded unification convention. This supposed exclusion attempt by the Election Commission will be challenged in court, perhaps successfully at that given the precedence, by the party which then leads to questions on the actual motives of the Commission by the attempt at exclusion especially complicated by the fact that the Election Commission is manned by ‘Honourables’ overtly on a party sharing basis representing the three major stakeholders of the current system. To this is added the actual mystery of the harsh crackdown in the capital centre whereas the RPP demonstration in other district centers held simultaneously went virtual unscathed. That the party leader is a sitting deputy prime minister with other members in government lending numbers to the cabinet’s existence adds to the mystery especially when these developments threaten not only the existence of government but also the local elections as such. For too long perhaps has Nepali politics been so precariously perched that the populace has been educated to believe in such dramatics having much malingtent. The RPP cadre, for example,  are too aware that the agenda that has been brought to focus for exclusion, is hardly a possibility despite its inclusion in the charter because they need a two thirds majority in a constitution which admits the impossibility of a majority government.