The Nepal Communist Party (NCP) is the ruling political party in Nepal and is the largest Communist Party in South-Asia and the third largest in Asia. It was founded on May 17, 2018, from the unification of two leftist parties, Communist Party of Nepal (Unified-Marxist-Leninist) and Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist centre).
In the nine-member NCP Secretariat, the top party organ that oversees the party’s regular functioning, PM Oli is already a minority. He is also unsure about his ability to garner majority support in the 45-member standing committee and the 174-member parliamentary party.
China is making huge efforts to protect the NCP-led government in Kathmandu amid rifts within top leadership of the ruling dispensation. Amid heightened intra-party row within the NCP, Chinese ambassador to Nepal, Hou Yanqui held a series of meetings with senior leaders of Kathmandu.
In the past ten days (till June 5), ever since Chinese president Xi Jingping had a 40-minute-long phone conversation with Nepali counterpart, Bidhya Devi Bhandar, ostensibly to promise all support to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, Ambassador Ho Yanqui has been very active and visible.
President Xi has dropped broad political hints, lending support to the PM at a time when at least six of the nine central secretariat members have come out openly in favour of his exit as party chairman as well as Prime Minister.
His excellency, the President of China, expressed his happiness over the return of the right honourable Prime Minister, KP Sharma Oli, to normal work schedule after his kidney transplant surgery and conveyed his best wishes to the retired honourable Prime Minister of Nepal for his good health and happiness, stated a press release issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on 27 April, hours after the phone conversation.
China has much at stake in Nepal, given its involvement in developmental projects. Kathmandu is also a signatory to the Beijing Belt and Road Initiative.
A month ahead of President Xi’s visit to Nepal in October, the NCP organised a symposium and invited Chinese Communist Party leaders to share Xi’s doctrine with over 200 of its party members.
Treaty of Sugauli, 1816:
The Treaty of Sugauli was signed on December 2, 1815, between the East India Company and the King of Nepal following the Anglo-Nepalese war of 1814–16. The treaty was ratified on March 4, 1816. It demarcated the borders of Nepal and British India.
Lord Francis Hastings was the Governor-General of Bengal during the Anglo-Gurkha war.