Maoists reached out to Vajpayee to end monarchy, Muni says

Nepal’s top Maoist leaders reached out to the then Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra through an Indian academic known for being close to the Nepali political players, an Indian newspaper The Hindu reports. In ‘Dabbling in Diplomacy: Authorised & Otherwise, Recollections of a Non-Career Diplomat’, Professor SD Muni, who taught at Jawaharlal Nehru University for more than three decades, has revealed that Nepal’s current Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal and former Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai traveled to India and met him, initiating a process that ultimately led to the overthrow of the monarchy, as per the report.

“In late 2003, Bamdev Chhetri, a Nepali national working in JNU library and known to me, visited my home one day. He said Baburam Bhattarai, who was then Maoist second-in-command, was in town and wanted to meet me urgently. He said that Baburam would not be able to come to JNU, because he is operating underground, so I will be taken to him,” Muni has written in the book that has been published by Konark Publishers of New Delhi.