India rolls out the red carpet for Nepal’s Maoist chief Prachanda ahead of elections

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Pushpa Kamal Dahal aka Prachanda, chairman of Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Center), said that his visit to India was highly successful to further enhance relationship both with India and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).</p>
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Dahal, who is also the former prime minister of Nepal, made the remarks upon his arrival at the Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu on Sunday evening after completing a three-day visit to the southern neighbor at the invitation of BJP president JP Nadda.</p>
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India had rolled out the red carpet for the former Prime Minister, who would be a key player in the upcoming elections in Nepal. Prachanda is currently part of a coalition government that his headed by Sher Bahadur Deuba, who leads the Nepali Congress.</p>
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The Maoist party chief said that his meeting with the BJP leadership at the BJP headquarters on Sunday afternoon was highly productive to promote party-to-party relationship and friendly bilateral ties with India. According to him, the BJP and CPN (Maoist Center)  agreed to increase interactions at the party-to-party level in the days to come.</p>
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Dahal noted that his party and the BJP have different ideologies but a common objective which is to uplift the poor section of society.</p>
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A statement from the BJP headquarters stated that BJP president Nadda said that Nepal has always been at the center of India’s ‘neighborhood first’ policy.</p>
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"The recent visits of Nepali Prime Minister Deuba to Delhi and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s trip to Lumbini have further strengthened the relationship between the two neighbors," Nadda was quoted by Press Trust of India as saying.</p>
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Nadda further said that the visit of Prachanda to the BJP headquarters is a major milestone in the growing relationship between the two major political parties.</p>
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Nadda added that  through “Know the BJP” initiative, his party has been cementing ties with all major political parties across the world. “Our objective is to use the party-to-party ties to strengthen the bilateral relations,” he said, adding Prachanda’s visit will further improve the connection between the two countries and societies.</p>
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Dahal is the second Nepali leader to visit the BJP headquarters in New Delhi. Earlier in April, Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, who is also the president of Nepali Congress, reached the BJP headquarters, in the course of his official visit to India.</p>
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Dahal's visit to India came at a time when Nepal is just a few months away from  the crucial parliamentary and provincial elections.</p>
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Sources said, in meetings with top Indian authorities, the Maoist chief also shared his views on the country's elections which are likely to be held in late November this year.</p>
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The CPN (Maoist Center) is presently a key partner in the five-party coalition government in Nepal which came to power in July last year succeeding the KP Sharma Oli-led government.</p>
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Dahal held separate meetings with India's National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar on Saturday. In both the meetings, Dahal lauded India's role in concluding Nepal's historic peace process that began in 2007 after the Maoist party joined hands with the pro-democracy forces by shunning its ten-year insurgency against the state.</p>
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Maoist chief Dahal said that his meetings with the top dignitaries revolved around further developing the age-old multifaceted ties between the two countries.</p>
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"I emphasized that all outstanding bilateral issues including boundary question should be resolved in the spirit of our mutual trust which is based on civilization linkages and people-to-people contacts. I found the Indian officials quite positive toward Nepal and Nepali people and our development endeavors," he said, adding that Nepal attaches a great importance to India in its foreign policy.</p>
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Chairman Dahal also praised the hospitality that he was given during his visit to India. "I was welcomed in India like the way I was welcomed when I paid a visit there in the capacity of prime minister a few years ago," he said.</p>