By Our Reporter The Upendra Yadav led Federal Socialist Forum and Baburam Bhattarai led Naya Shakti Party have been merged into a new party, Socialist Party Nepal. Yadav is known as a pro-West leader, whereas, Bhattarai is known as close to the Indian Congress and RAW. Furthermore, Yadav is very close with Pushpakamal Dahal Prachanda as well it is said he was playing a vital role to make Prachanda the next PM. Surprisingly, the two leaders having different connections have announced such a unification of their two parties. According to political analyst Bharat Dahal, the present unification is a design of the American Indo-Pacific Strategy. Dahal’s argument cannot be ignored as Ashok Rai, who is backed by the Western INGOs to intensify communalism and create conflict among different communalities in the country, is learnt to have a major role in the unification. So far, the two leaders have announced that the two parties were unified for the cause of strengthening and institutionalizing federalism and republicanism in the country, which are the Western agendas. Interestingly, Yadav’s erstwhile party is in the government. Whether the Yadav faction will quit the government or Bhattarai will join the government, it has not become clear. Meanwhile, Tarun vernacular weekly has reported that Shyamsharan, former Indian external affairs secretary and former ambassador to Nepal, and also the main designer of the 12-point agreement, had visited Kathmandu secretly and held a secret lunch meeting with Pushpakamal Dahal Prachanda. Three weeks ago, Shyamsharan was in Kathmandu and didn’t meet with anybody except Prachanda. A highly placed source informed that Shyamsharan had asked Prachanda to prepare himself to be an alternate to PM KP Sharma Oli. At the lunch meeting at the Khumaltar residence of Prachanda, responding to Shyamsharan, Prachanda had said that he was waiting for an opportunity. Shyamsharan, who actually was on a four-day visit, instead he spent seven days in Kathmandu, it has been said. PM Oli tried to know about Shyamsharan’ activities during his stay in Kathmandu, but this became a difficult task for him. According to the source, when Oli was informed about the secret talks between Prachanda and Shyamsharan, he stopped the reshuffling of his cabinet. The Prachanda-Shyamsharan meeting was based on power transfer. Earlier, there had been a gentlemen’s agreement between Oli and Prachanda agreeing that Oli would lead the government for the first two years and Prachanda would lead the government for the remaining three years. Shyamsharan had asked Prachanda whether Oli is going to handover the PM’s post to him after ten months! Prachanda had replied that he has become suspicious from the latest activities of Oli. Prachanda had thus said, he is in a wait and see position. Shyamsharan had finally said that he was ready to help Prachanda regarding the handing over of power. Shyamsharan had further suggested to Prachanda to improve his relations with Baburam Bhattarai. The Weekly has also stated that when the 2006 April uprising was gaining momentum, Shyamsharan was the foreign secretary and he had accompanied Karan Singh during his visit to Kathmandu. In Kathmandu, the then King Gyanendra Shah extended a red-carpet welcome to Singh by totally neglecting Shyamsharan. From this incident, Shyamsharan became angry with the King and immediately contacted the leaders of the agitating seven parties and also the Maoist and advised them for not ending the agitation until there was an assurance of Nepal being a republic. On 21 April, 2006, King Gyanendra, as per the agreement with Karan Singh, had announced to address the demands of the agitating parties. However, due to Shyamsharan’s advice, the agitation did not end and later King Gyanendra was compelled to make another announcement on 24 April, 2006. At a programme held in Kathmandu on Sunday, Prachanda said that he was ready to take any kind of risk any time. “If needed, I can return to the jungle and carry a gun again.” He had said. The above remarks can be linked with his secret meeting with Shyamsharan, the Weekly has reported. Meanwhile, the unnatural alliance between Yadav and Bhattarai can also be linked with Shyamsharan’s Kathmandu visit. As stated above, Bhattarai is the blue-eyed boy of Shyamsharan group [Congress I bureaucracy, which was totally relied on RAW] in India. It can be assumed that Prachanda could have used Upendra Yadav to bring Bhattarai closer to him. Furthermore, the Shyamsharan group in India played an important role to declare Nepal as a federal, secular republic. However, the present leadership and also the Congress I leadership in India believe now that the new system in Nepal became counterproductive for India as India saw a massive Western influence in the “new” Nepal. On the other hand, those bureaucrats who held responsible posts in the Indian administration and were involved in 12-point agreement, are still trying to justify their decision on Nepal. A group of former senior officials, who were involved in the 12-point agreement, had visited Kathmandu just before Indian PM Narendra Modi’s second visit to Nepal. During that time, Modi had started his Nepal visit from Janakpur. At that time too, the group of the former Indian officials had held secret separate meeting with Prachanda and Bhattarai. That time too, they had advised both the leaders to develop good relations between them. They had also warned the two leaders saying that Modi, during his stay in Kathmandu, may put pressure for adopting Hindu religion, which should be opposed by them strongly.