A poster of Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath has sparked a row in Nepal after it was seen at the welcome event for the country’s former King Gyanendra Shah in Kathmandu on Sunday.
It came days after the former monarch made his first direct appeal to the nation for support to ‘secure’ its future. The poster gave the opponents of the former King great ammunition.
Gyanendra’s Kathmandu rally on Sunday, just days after his arrival in Nepal, is being seen as his biggest challenge yet to Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli’s government, which is fighting allegations of corruption.
Why did Yogi Adityanath’s poster spark a row in Nepal?
Yogi Adityanath’s poster at the event hosting former King Gyanendra Shah sparked a row in Kathmandu as the BJP leader is a known supporter of Nepal’s deposed monarchy.
According to PM KP Sharma Oli’s supporters, Adityanath’s poster at the former monarch’s rally was evidence of an ‘India hand’ behind him, raising questions over the credibility of the gathering, the Indian Express reported.
Meanwhile, without naming Adityanath, Prime Minister Oli, at a programme in Kathmandu on Monday, said, “We don’t use photographs of foreign leaders in our rallies.”
The pro-monarchy parties alleged that the UP CM’s posters had been “planted”, and called it a conspiracy by the incumbent government. The row has certainly turned into a slugfest with India’s name being dragged into the message.
The organisers of the rally maintain that they did not sanction the use of Adityanath’s image. The only instructions to the participants, according to them, were to use the national flag and Gyanendra’s portrait.
“We are not so weak as needing to use a foreigner’s photo in our procession,” Dipak Gyawali, a former minister and pro-monarchist, was quoted by the Indian Express as saying.
Gyawali questioned the presence of portraits of Marx, Lenin, Mao, etc at the communist party offices.
Former Nepal King Gyanendra’s Yogi Adityanath connection
When Gyanendra was ousted from power in Nepal in 2008 after the then UPA government brokered a deal between pro-democracy parties and the monarch, the one person who was critical of the move was Yogi Adityanath. He was then an MP from UP’s Gorakhpur.
The ties between Nepal’s erstwhile royal family and the Gorakhnath mutt of Gorakhpur are quite deep. Yogi Adityanath is currently the head of the Gorakhnath mutt.
According to Rajendra Lingden, the president of the Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP), which was the main organiser of the Gyanendra rally, pointed to the connection.
“We don’t know about it (the Adityanath poster). But what we know and respect is that King Gyanendra has a deep connection of faith and respect with the Gorakhnath mutt, since the Shah dynasty is believed to have been blessed by Guru Gorakhnath,” Lingden said in the issue.
Gorakhnath remains the presiding deity of the Shah dynasty and was also one of Nepal while the country was a monarchy. Gorakhnath mutt heads have long visited mutts and shrines in Nepal.