The government of India has expressed its concern on the issue of Bhutan refugees in Nepal on several occasions. Now, the CPI (M) has decided to take the issue with the Nepal Government.
CPM Politburo member Sitaram Yechury is currently in Kathmandu. According to the report, Yechuri has a plan to meet PM GP Koirala and Deputy PM and Foreign Minister K P Sharma Oli. He is likely to raise the matter during the meeting with these leaders.
Yechury is on mission for the assessment of the ground situations in the country in the veiw of the constituent Assembly elections and the ongoing peace process in the country. During this visit, he also had a meeting with Prachanda, Chairman of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), and Baburam Bhattrai on Monday.
The Nepal government has demanded about India’s intervention in the matter of Bhutan refugees in Nepal. The CPM government in West Bengal is facing a problem in this matter. Some of the refugees asked the state government to allow them to go to Bhutan through the West Bengal border. It had happened once in the month of may and had resulted in tensions and police firing.
The CPM government has found a solution of the problem. According to it, the refugees can cross the Mechi River that marks near the West Bengal-Nepal border. The CPM has good relations with the present ruling government in Nepal.
During Yechuri’s previous visit to Kathmandu, a delegation of Bhutanese refugees in Nepal had submitted a memorandum to him and had requested him to seek India’s intervention in this matter. They made a complain that Indian government stop them when they try to go from Nepal to Bhutan through India.
More than one lakh Bhutanese refugees have been living in seven camps in eastern Nepal for some 15 years now. Earlier, members of the Bhutan National Front for Democracy (BNFD) had visited India and insisted on a tripartite dialogue among India, Nepal and Bhutan to solve the matter.
