Joshi announces end of talk with NC leadership, silent about his role in Tanahu by-election

Govinda Raj Joshi, a prominent politician and former Nepali congress leader has declared that the ongoing dialogue between his supporters and the Nepali congress has ended.

In a Facebook status on Wednesday, Joshi said the NC leadership did not appear keen and honest in resolving the issue, and there was no point carrying on with the negotiation.

Joshi, who has held key ministerial positions in the past including Home and Education, had been expelled from the Nepali Congress six years ago, ostensibly on the pressure from another NC leader Ram Chandra Poudel who has now become the President. Soon after Poudel moved the Sheetal Niwas, Nepali congress leadership declared that it had revoked Joshi’s expulsion from the party.

Joshi however, refused to return to the party without addressing issues he had been raising all along. But, few rounds of talks between the Joshi group and the NC leadership, represented by his son Deepak Raj Joshi and Sher Bahadur Deuba ended as there was no concrete response to the issues raised.

According to the sources involved in the dialogue from Joshi side, the NC leadership was not keen to rehabilitate nonagenarian leader K B Gurung in some dignified way befitting his contribution to the democratic struggle.

Sources said Party General Secretary Gagan Thapa and Joint General Secretary Jeevan Pariyar had met Joshi separately offering his group some seats in the 165-member Central committee of the party, but the issue was not discussed at the final round of the talk.

The NC leadership had apparently approached Joshi for his support to the Nepali congress candidate Gobinda Bhattarai from Tanahu-1  for the April 23 parliamentary by-election. The Joshi group has not yet decided who it will support in the by-election but has indicated that it will remain active as an ‘Independent Congress Group’.