Jhapali people welcome former King Gyanendra

The people in Jhapa showed immense love to former king Gyanendra on Saturday. The big crowd the former king drew in Birtamod showed that even the people in Jhapa were not happy with the present political system and its leaders.

Jhapa is home to all top communist leaders including chairman KP Oli of UML. Jhapa showed the seed of political changes in the past and it had remained a breeding ground for communists. But the crowd that gathered to greet the former King on Saturday last week showed otherwise. Interestingly, the former king reached Jhapa when Durga Prasain, who also hails from Jhapa, was in Kathmandu with his supporters to organise a pro-monarchy rally. Escorted by Rastriya Prajatantra Party chairman Rajendra Lingden, the former king was greeted by hundreds of thousands of people with slogans for scrapping the present system and returning to monarchy when he headed to unveil the statue of Great King Prithvi Narayan Shah.

The Jhapa visit of the former King showed two things—first, the popularity of the monarchy is on the rise, and second RPP chairman Lingden is capable of proving that his party is truly promonarchical and loyal to the former king.

After seeing the crowd that gathered to greet the deposed king, many leaders in Kathmandu seemed to have lost their sleep. It is evident from their expressions. From NC chair Sher Bahadur Deuba to party general secretary Gagan Kumar Thapa, and JSP-N chair Upendra Yadav said that there was no chance of the restoration of monarchy in the country. Thapa even challenged to the king to join politics by opening a political party.