For the record: Premraj Devkota, the teashop owner just outside Kantipur complex- where my office is located- slapped Maoist lawmaker Jhakku Prasad Subedi. Like many staffs at Kantipur I too have gone many times for tea and quick snacks at Premraj daju’s place (though its not my favorite teashop- didn’t even know his name till today. Is it Premlal or Premraj? Ok, will go with the latter). Last time I was there was some five days ago when a doctor from Nepalgunj had come to see me at my office. A week before that I had gone there at his teashop along with a representative of American INGO NED. Premlal dai is a politically conscious person- that I know from his talks. He almost always talks (a lot) to his customers- especially to journalists- about politics and gives his own analysis of the situation. He had voted for the Maoist party in the CA election- to Jhakku himself who was elected from Kathmandu-2. I also voted in the same constituency though I would not like to reveal my electoral leaning here 🙂 So here are my tweets of the incident. I couldn’t gather much info during the day as was busy translating a long Osama bin Laden obituary for the paper..so just presenting tweets here in reverse chronological order.
The slap to a CA member comes months after a similar incident in which a man in eastern Nepal slapped JN Khanal who, after couple of monts of receiving the slap, became the Prime Minister of Nepal. Here’s my story, in Nepali, on shabasad that appeared in last Saturday’s Kantipur: बिचरा सभासद !
Dinesh Wagle on Nepali Society 