N/P Upadhyaya, Biratnagar: The former UML leader Bhim Rawal is dead against the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) but yet he claims that “I am not against the MCC grant offer to Nepal”.

However, Rawal says “I differ with some of the provisions contained in the agreement which surely limits Nepal’s sovereign decision making process”.

For example, Rawal says one of the article of the said agreement clearly states that Nepal’s laws shall remain ineffective if those laws impede the smooth functioning of the MCC agreement which were signed with the US.

“Doesn’t this undermine Nepal’s sovereign decision making practices and hit hard on the nation’s constitutional supremacy”, Rawal questions.

He then again refers to the Article 5-A of the MCC agreement signed with the US administration which brings in the Indian establishment unnecessarily in an agreement which is being signed in between two sovereign nations-the US and Nepal.

Why India’s inclusion is in this agreement?

Is it a tripartite agreement? Questions Rawal.

Mr. Rawal then reiterates what the Kathmandu based US embassy officials says of the MCC in the recent days.

The US embassy official in Kathmandu Carl Rogers freshly (Friday) has said that the MCC is definitely linked with the US designed Indo-Pacific Strategy.

Similarly, notes Bhim Rawal that the US Assistant Secretary of State Ms. Alice Wells on February 10/19 clearly reiterated in one of her statement that MCC was an integral part of the IPS-Indo-Pacific Strategy.

“If the Minister and the US embassy officials authentically claim that the MCC was an integral part of the Indo-Pacific Strategy then why Nepali leaders ruling the nation have been cheating the population, questions former Minister Bhim Rawal.

His questions appear valid to a considerable degree.

Mr. Rawal’s criticism of the MCC came close on the heels of a secret intra-party circular which states that the MCC was not at all linked with the IPS and hence the MCC must be endorsed by the ruling government.

Interestingly, the communists who are in the government prefer the MCC ratification from the national parliament and conversely those communists who are in the foot path now have been opposing the MCC grant from the US administration.

Nepal’s handpicked foreign minister Pradip Kumar Gyawali says that the MCC agreement was signed by Nepal on September 2017 but the Indo-Pacific Strategy IPS came into existence only in November 2017

“And therefore the two are at all not linked with each other” claims a determined Foreign Minister elevated by PM KP Sharma Oli.

Gyawali, as the rumor goes in Kathmandu’s political/diplomatic circuit, lacks the art/knowledge of diplomacy as he has not ever been heard of attending any school which teaches diplomacy or for that matter the international conduct between nations.

This perhaps explains the rest.  

The internal party circular which favors the endorsement of the MCC is being criticized by personalities like Rawal and his group who have been opposing the signing of the MCC for some good reasons as they conclude that their protest is in the national interest.

The ruling party elites (those who are siding with PM Oli) will get the MCC ratified by the Parliament come what may despite the opposition made by Rawal and his colleagues.

Telegraph adds: Observers here opine that prior to the ratification of the MCC, the foreign ministry officials of the US and Nepal need to clarify certain anomalies. For example the questions being raised so forcefully by Bhim Rawal and his colleagues need to be answered.

If done so, would be an act of wisdom. Will Nepal and the US officials convince the opposing voices much ahead of the ratification? That’s all.