India trying to restore monarchy in Nepal, says Prachanda

Stepping up his anti-India rhetoric, Maoist supremo Prachanda has accused it of backing a 'conspiracy' to restore monarchy in Nepal, which had turned into a republic from a kingdom just a year ago.

Prachanda, who quit as premier after a dispute with President Ram Baran Yadav over the issue of sacking of the army chief, said the present Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist) -led government is 'just a puppet' and efforts are on to 'murder the infant republic'.

"After Madhav Kumar Nepal became the prime minister, a conspiracy is being hatched with the help of foreign powers to restore monarchy," Prachanda told a workers' gathering in Lalitpur near Kathmandu on Friday, the day Nepal observed its first republic day.

The country abolished its 240-year-old monarchy on May 29 last year, dislodging King Gyendra from power.

"First of all, Gyanendra will be brought back as the King for some time and he would then abdicate on health grounds. Then his grandson Hridayenda will be declared ceremonial king, for which preparations are being done in Delhi," he alleged.

While resigning as prime minister earlier this month, Prachanda had indirectly accused India of interfering in Nepal's internal affairs.

Prachanda on Friday also warned of a 'decisive fight' between the Maoists and "those political parties which believe in Parliament", in which the "people's victory is certain," Maoist mouthpiece Janadisha daily reports.

"Now the war will be launched from the urban areas unlike in past, when the war began from rural areas," the Maoist chief said. He also claimed that he will lead the 'final fight' to establish people's republic in the country. Efforts were on to avert the institutionalisation of the republic by forcing the Maoists 'back to war', he alleged.

He, however, said that his party would act responsibly to institutionalise the republic and write the new constitution. "As both the agenda emerge from the convictions of the people's war and people's movement for which many people sacrificed their lives, we are committed to them, along with the peace process," he said.

Prachanda also accused the Nepali Congress and CPN-UML of "not being republic in true sense".

"The political parties endorsed our agenda of republic only after former King Gyanendra had cornered them," he said.