Congratulations To Rajendra Mahto

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Phone Interview With Rajendra Mahato

Photos

• Rajendra Mahto 5
• Rajendra Mahto 4
• Rajendra Mahto 3
• Rajendra Mahto 2
• Rajendra Mahto 1

Videos

Anil Jha, Nepal Sadbhavana Party 1
Anil Jha, Nepal Sadbhavana Party 2
Anil Jha, Nepal Sadbhavana Party 3
Madhesi Gathering In Prospect Park 1
Madhesi Gathering In Prospect Park 2
Ridgewood Dashain Party

I would like to publicly congratulate Rajendra Mahto, my friend of over a decade, for having been unanimously elected president of the Sadbhavana party. His election was the icing on the cake. The party's convention has also come up with some other major positive developments.

The party president's powers have been reduced, and that is a good thing. The party should get into the habit of holding extensive internal discussions before taking major discussions. The process of reaching decisions is almost as important as the decisions reached.

The party is going to go out of its way to make sure its central committee is inclusive of the Dalits and the Janajatis and women and youth. That is very good thing. The Dalits are in the Terai what the Madhesis are in Nepal. The Madhesi leadership must go out of its way to uplift the Dalits in the Terai. That the Dalits in the Pahad do not fare any better is no excuse. Similarly, the party must show that it is inclusive of Tharus. The party's central committee, I hope, is at least one third women.

Rajendra Mahto now has the powers to try to punish the Sadbhavana leaders who recently tried to snatch away his cabinet position. He could sideline them inside the party. But he should not give into that temptation. Those dissidents might still stay away, but on his part, the Sadbhavana's new party president must go out of his way to try and bring as many of those dissidents into the fold as possible. He should work extra hard to get people like Hridayesh Tripathy, Bharat Bimal Yadav and others to come into the party's new central committee. If he can not take that first step, it will become harder for him to forge a grand Madhesi Alliance with the MJF, Jwala, Goit and others. Now is the time to bring together all Madhesi leaders, inside the party and outside, under the slogan of Ek Madhesh, Ek Pradesh.

Hridayesh Tripathy had been using Anandi Devi like a pawn. That was wrong. Either Tripathy should himself contest to be party president, or he should be more respectful of those who do take up officer positions in the party.

The Sadbhavana has come up with a viable map for federalism: three states that get further divided into regions. So all of Terai would be one state, and there might be three or four regions inside that state. That model can work. This is better than the newest Maoist map that physically breaks the Terai into two by giving Chitwan over to some hill state. That can't be done. All of Terai has to be one state, it has to be one continuous geographic unit.

So I guess you end up with a Terai state, and inside that state you will have a Mithila, a Bhojpur, an Awadh, and a Tharuwan. I can live with that.

What really caught my attention though - since Mahto's election to the party president's post was a foregone conclusion even before the convention started - was that the party has said the Prime Minister of the country must be directly elected. That is a huge move. And this makes the Sadbhavana to be the first big party in the country to go for this. I congratulate Sarita Giri, the author of the party's manifesto, for making this major jump.

You would hold direct elections. And if no one candidate gets at least 50% of the votes cast, within a month, you hold a second round between the two top candidates.

To my mind this provision for a directly elected Prime Minister is the best thing to have come out of this recent convention of the Sadbhavana party. This would make for a better arrangement than what India, Britain and America have.

During the 1994-1996 period, there used to the Nepal Samajwadi Janata Dal. It had two MPs: Rameshwar Raya Yadav, and Hridayesh Tripathy. Sarita Giri and I were Vice General Secretaries to that party. Rajendra Mahto was a central committee member.

Rajendra Mahto's number one task right now is to show magnanimity and work hard to bring all the disgruntled leaders back into the fold. I think he should go ahead and show up at the homes of those leaders, people like Hridayesh, Bharat Bimal, and Rameshwar Raya Yadav. All of them should be urged to join the party's central committee. Heck, even Anandi Devi would look great in the party's central committee.

It also feels good to see Anil Jha playing such an active part in the Sadbhavana's leadership. Our friendship has been forged during our meetings during his two trips to New York City.

I am extremely happy that Rajendra Mahto is now party president of the Sadbhavana.

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उपेन्द्र यादव: सरकार र फोरमबीच सम्झौता
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तराई बन्द नहीं संगठन िवस्तार किरए
जयप्रकाश गुप्ता: मधेस आन्दोलनका आग्रह
Goal Has To Be To Stay As One Country





In The News

महतो ँअध्यक्ष’ हुने Kantipur राष्ट्रिय कार्यसमितिको निर्वाचित २० स्थानका लागि ५७ जनाको उम्मेदवारी परेको छ ...... महाधिवेशनमा ८० प्रतिशत सहभागिताको दाबी गरिए पनि संख्या ठ्याक्कै भन्न नेताहरूले चाहेनन् । 'पाँच सयभन्दा बढी सहभागी भएका छन्,' महतोले भने । बेलुकी एउटा समूहले माईस्थान चोकमा महाधिवेशन धोका हो भन्दै केहीबेर नाराबाजी गरेको थियो । ........ प्रवक्ता सरिता गिरीद्वारा प्रस्तुत घोषणापत्र पनि सर्वसम्मतिले पारित भएको छ । राजनीतिक स्थिरताका लागि प्रत्यक्ष निर्वाचनमार्फत प्रधानमन्त्री चयन गर्ने घोषणापत्रमा उल्लेख छ । राजतन्त्रले मधेसीलगायतका समुदायविरुद्घ षड्यन्त्र गरेको भन्दै पार्टी लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्रको पक्षधर रहेको उल्लेख छ । 'संघीय शासन व्यवस्थाअन्तर्गत मुलुकलाई हिमाल, पहाड र मधेस तीन स्वायत्त प्रदेशमा विभाजन गरिनेछ,' घोषणापत्रमा भनिएको छ- 'प्रदेशहरूलाई भाषा, संस्कृति र जातजातिका आधारमा विभिन्न प्रान्तमा विभाजन गरिनेछ ।' ....... राजेन्द्र महतोले संविधानसभा चुनावबाट सबैभन्दा बढी मधेसी समुदायले लाभ उठाउने भएकाले यसमा खुलेर लाग्नुपर्ने बताएका छन् । 'पहिलोपटक जनताले आफ्नो हातले संविधान लेख्ने अवसर पाउनेछन्,' वीरगन्जमा रिपोर्टर्स क्लबको साक्षात्कारमा उनले भने- 'यसको अहिले सदुपयोग गरेनौं भने यो अवसरका लागि शताब्दीयौं कुर्नुपर्नेछ ।' ....... सद्भावना पार्टी संविधानसभाको निर्वाचनमा सहभागी हुन मधेसमा सक्रिय सबै मधेसी दल, सशस्त्र संगठनहरू र संघसंस्थासँग मोर्चा बनाउन तयार रहेको बताए ।
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Mahato elected NSP-A chairman NepalNews The general convention of the dissident faction of Nepal Sadbhawana Party (Anandi Devi) underway in Birgunj has elected Rajendra Mahato as chairman of the party, unopposed. .... a five-member committee of NSP leaders is trying to choose 20 central committee members without voting. 37 candidacies were filed today for the 20 elected seats. ..... 21 other central members will be nominated by the party leadership.
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Nepal Sadbhavana Party (A) elects Mahato as chairman NewKerala.com The special convention of the Nepal Sadbhavana Party (Anandidevi), the biggest and oldest political party of the Terai region of Nepal, has unanimously elected Rajendra Mahato as the chairman of the party. ..... The session also passed the new party statute with a new provision of a chairperson, co-chairpersons, two vice-chairpersons and 41 central members ..... Mandal was ousted from the party and the two parties Nepal Sadbhavana and Nepal Sadbhavana Party (Anandi Devi) united a few months ago.
Minister Mahato to lead NSP-A, Karna settles for co-chairman post Kantipur Online, Nepal the party vice-chairman Laxman Lal Karna agreed not to fight for the party’s top post. ..... a no-confidence motion against party chairperson Anandi Devi Singh ..... The motion, which was lodged by 221 general convention representatives and tabled by party’s general secretary Anil Kumar Jha at the closed-door session held at the City Hall in Birgunj, was passed by clapping hands this afternoon. ..... The party has proposed that during the restructuring of the country, one national parliament and three autonomous regions with their own regional parliaments should be set up and the lawmakers in the national and regional parliaments should be elected through a mixed-electoral system. ...... The party has also proposed that the Prime Minister should be elected through the first-past-the-post system. ..... party’s Election Officer Mumtaj Ahmad informed that altogether 625 representative of the party should have been present in the convention. ...... Mahato claimed that 80 to 85 percent of the party leaders and cadres have participated in the three-day convention .... Senior party Vice-Chairman Laxman Lal Karna told a local FM station Thursday night that he also plans to apply for the party’s top post. ..... In the closed-door session, the party leaders and cadres have strongly raised demands such as annulment of unlimited powers given to the party chairperson, party unity, party policy and election manifesto in local Hindi language.

Senior politicians, civil society leaders discuss political crisis Kantipur UML General Secretary Madhav Kumar Nepal, Nepali Congress General Secretary and Minister for Peace and Reconstruction Ram Chandra Poudel, Home Minister Krishna Prasad Sitaula, Maoist second-in-command Dr Baburam Bhattarai, leader of Nepal Sadbhavana Party-Anandi Devi Hridayesh Tripathi and other leaders of the eight parties and prominent civil society activists are involved in the discussion.
Maoists struggle to reschedule roundtable finding it increasingly difficult to hold their proposed roundtable conference ..... Although a Maoist source said Narahari Acharya of Nepali Congress and Pradip Giri of NC (Democratic) have expressed their commitment to participation, Acharya told the Post he has not received any invitation. "I have no knowledge of such a conference," he said. ..... the party will again hold discussions with the leadership of the Nepal Federation of Indigenous Nationalities (NEFIN) and other ethnic groups for their participation. NEFIN and the Federal Democratic National Forum have already declined to attend the Maoist 'roundtable'.
JTMM-G cadres torch Matrika Yadav’s jeep Five days ago, Yadav’s bodyguard Bibek, had runaway in the vehicle along with one AK-47 rifle, and Rs 500, 000. He was also the driver of the jeep (Ja 1 Pa 503). .... A former JTMM cadre, Bibek had joined the Maoist party a year ago. .... Bivek is said to have rejoined JTMM. ... The JTMM-G, which waging an armed agitation for a separate Terai state, is a renegade faction of the CPN-Maoist.
CA polls must to ensure rights of Madhes: Minister Mahato Rajendra Mahato Saturday underscored the need of active participation in the upcoming Constituent Assembly elections to ensure the rights of Madhesi people. ..... time had come for the two-decade-old dream of the party to be materialized. ..... "Now no one can stop the gun-powder of Madhes from being exploded," said Minister Mahato. ..... the party would unite all Madhesi and pro-Madhesis for the decisive fight ..... the election of the 20-member central working committee of the party couldn't take place after all the candidates who had registered their names for the post withdrew their names unanimously ....... stating that the current circumstances within the party was not suitable for such elections. ...... Laxmanlal Karna, Narsingh Chaudhari, Paramanand Yadav, Bishnu Narayan Chaudhari and Ram Naresh Yadav would nominate new members within few days, said senior NSP-A leader Anil Jha. ..... The nomination would be as inclusive as possible by appointing Dalit, women, youth and indigenous people's representative ...... Altogether 57 persons had registered their names for the central working committee earlier. ...... The Mahato-led faction had unanimously passed no-confidence move against the party chairman Singh on Friday. The NSP-A leader Mahato has a strong hold in the party.