By Sunil KC

The Oli government has put on hold tabling all six ordinances in the parliament after two small parties said they will oppose the ordinances, mainly the one related to amending some clauses of the existing Land Act. The Janata Samajwadi Party of Upendra Yadav and Loktantrik Samajwadi Party of Mahanta Thakur, a partner in the coalition government issued statements saying their parties suspected of underlying nefarious intentions of giving away government and public lands to the party workers, its affiliates and land mafias. When those two parties rejected the ordinance, the government tried other means like enticing and luring the Maoist party and Madhav Kumar Nepal’s CPN-Socialist to garner the necessary votes.

It is reported that Sher Bahadur Deuba of the Nepali Congress also tried to cajole Madhav Nepal and his CPN-Socialist party with 9 seats in the upper house of the parliament, but failed. The ordinance hit the stone wall after opposing voices from within the Nepali Congress, the coalition partner in the Oli government, started seeping in. Had the ordinances been pushed through the parliament and were rejected, Prime Minister KP Oli would be under moral pressure to resign. So, to save his face, he decided to postpone tabling the ordinances in the parliament.

One of the contentious provisions in that ordinance, as reported in the media, is that the ordinance seeks to relax the ceiling of land holding by delineating and demarcatingthe existing forest and pasture areas, river banks and other public lands and to bring excess land under government control to be given away for property development and other commercial purposes.

The government said it planned to start distributing those lands to almost 1.2 million landless, homeless, squatters and other settlers currently occupying public land as soon as within a month of passing the ordinance. Why such haste? That is the catch and it raised serious doubts that the ordinance was just a façade to give away those lands to party men, its supporters and to interest groups rather than the neediest ones. One example many cite is the current finance minister Bishnu Poudel of UML was registered as landless in the census of 2059 BS. Many raise eyebrows as to how could a landless UML party man rise to such affluence within a short period of two decades. His name is also intricately linked to the infamous Lalita Niwas case. Therefore, there are valid reasons for scepticism as there are numerous instances of public and government lands and properties worth billions of rupees being illegally held or possessed by party men, political leaders of all political parties, business people and land mafias. Notable examples are the Lalita Niwas case of Baluwatar, Shera Durbar case of Nuwakot, Tikapur land case of Kailali, Bansbari land, Bal Mandir land lease case of Kathmandu and land belonging to Giribandhu Tea Estate in Jhapa.

Their suspicion was further cemented after the Supreme Court issued a seven-day show cause notice to Oli and the government for failing to comply with the court’s decision of last year on the Giribandhu Tea Estate. A petition of contempt of court was filed at the Supreme Court against Oli and the government for not complying with the Court’s decision against swapping the land of Giribandhu Tea Estate. The constitutional bench of last year had blocked the government’s intention of exchanging hundreds of bighas of prime land of the Giribandhu Tea Estate in Jhapa worth billions of rupees with land in another place against the Land Reforms Act of 2021 BS. The petition cited that instead of complying with the Supreme Court’s order, the present government tried to circumvent it by sneaking in the ordinance to relax the land ceiling so that the land could be sold or brought in for other purposes. Why is the government so intent on getting this particular ordinance to be passed by the parliament? This indicates deep collusion between the political parties and their leaders and unscrupulous interest groups and land mafias to grab public and government land all over the country.

Another ordinance to put restrictions on social media is also equally controversial. Sensing severe opposition, the government also decided not to pursue any of the six ordinances it has issued.  Now, with all the ordinances being shelved for now the political tussle within and among the parties has intensified. It will not be surprising if Loktantrik Samajwadi Party of Mahanta Thakur withdraws from the coalition and another Janata Samajwadi Party retracts its support to the government. Maybe sensing the collapse of the government, Prime Minister Oli has reverted to defending it. Earlier this week, he said at his party’s gathering in Dang that this coalition will not collapse even if the opponents fire 17 cannon fires, meaning the next 17 months until he remains prime minister. Not surprisingly, Prachanda and Madhav Nepal saw the failure of the ordinance as an opportunity to hit back at Oli and the coalition government.

Now, the issue is, after Oli’s gambit fails how it will affect relations between the UML and the Nepali Congress. Many congressmen accuse Deuba of letting Oli and the UML overshadow the Nepali Congress in government affairs. There could be pressure on Deuba to stop being second fiddle to Oli by seeking an alternative or to exert more authority in the government affairs being the biggest party in the coalition. This could affect the outcome of the party’s general convention supposed to be held next year. But there are signs that Sher Bahadur Deuba looks unwilling to step down, as indicated by one of his closest supporters Dr. Prakash Sharan Mahat at a party meeting earlier this week. Instead, Deuba may use a clause in the party statute to extend his tenure by one-and-a-half years citing general election in the following year and the party’s turn to head the government, if the present coalition remains intact until then.