We have hundreds of political parties in the country but only a dozen participate in the ‘Power Games’ and only a handful get to be part of a government at a time and help themselves with the loot. Yes, gather 10,000 signatures, file your registration at the Election Commission and start your own political party. If you are lucky and somehow manage to get at least one seat in the House, be it directly-elected or through the PR system, then you can even be a mantri, but only if you are willing to contribute a few Karods to the leading party in the ruling coalition. 

At the end of the day, everything has to do with money. No wonder, byaparis become CA members after paying a political party a few Karods. Gangsters become Central Committee Members of a political party because they have the muscles and our politicians can use them to extort our byaparis and also help out during elections. We even have folks who have citizenship papers of three countries and have changed political parties every summer so that they can share some of the loot as well.

We have the Bibeksheel Nepali, a party founded by young folks in the Valley. Well, they have been doing a good job carrying out protest programmes here and there but is that enough? Just holding placards and protesting against bandas won’t do much in this land where our police wallahs look the other way while banda wallahs burn taxis and thrash protesters who protest against the bandas! The Bibeksheel Nepali can show its strength not by protesting against bandas but by hiring water tankers every day to at least minimise the dust storm in the Valley. Yes, collect funds from your well-wishers, family, relatives and yes, our byaparis as well. The Bibeksheel wallahs can help the traffic police manage our traffic in the Valley. Make the micro bus wallahs stop their buses at the designated parking spot instead on the middle of the street. Yes, and do ask your cadres to at least take mixed-martial arts training as well so that when you protest against the banda wallahs, your folks can defend themselves because our police wallahs won’t!

What we need today is an ‘activist’ party, not another ‘empty speech’ wallahs who think their words will change this country overnight. We are still waiting to be Singapore but so far our corrupt clowns have worked hard together to make sure that this country turns out to be another ‘Somalia’ in the near future.

Our Maoists talked about political and social change and we expected a lot from them. Well, maybe our so-called major political parties and our Desi bhais were right. Once our comrades left the jungle and joined the mainstream, they too would turn out to be just another party lusting after power and money. Today, Baidya Ba is still hoping for the final trench warfare with India. Biplab Dai wants to go back to the jungle and we know he won’t but his BBQ nataks of burning towers and buses help to extort money from our telecom, media and other businesses as well. 

Dr Baburam decided to stop wearing the ‘Mao’ brand and started his own party. His ‘Naya Shakti’ seems to be going nowhere. Dr Saheb is our former Prime Monster and he will get all the security, vehicle and chiya kharcha from the State for the rest of his life. Karishma Manandhar will continue to host the ‘Holi Party’ with her hubby every year till they are seventy. And the rest of the folks who joined the Naya Shakti to change Nepal will have to either get back to work, find a new job or just quit politics and start thinking about providing a better future for themselves and their families. 

And now, we have Rabindra Mishra who has quit his high-paying job as head of BBC Nepali Service to start his own political party. Here in this land, we have lazy bums who have no jobs and only know how to spew venom, join political parties or start their own in hopes of making some dough. But in the case of Rabindra dai, we have a person who has decided to quit his job that pays him lakhs of Rupees so that he can be a full-time politician! 

Either the guy is crazy, or is suffering from mid-life crisis at 50 or really wants to devote his time to participate in the ‘Political Olympics’ of Nepal where his chances of winning the gold is as rare as our Nepali team winning the real ‘Olympic Gold’. But we must start somewhere and let us all wish Rabindra Dai and his team best of luck. 

How far will his ‘Sajha’ Party go? Well, we don’t know yet but if Mishra can at least provide some solutions to solve some of our problems then he will do better in politics than the two other parties that seem to be going nowhere. 

And of course, politics is not easy in this land where policies and vision don’t matter while only muscle and money help to stay in power. Mishra should just start by mobilising his party members to help keep this Valley clean and then slowly work to clean the system that is ruining this land. And it’s time our byaparis start their own ‘capitalist’ party as well. Binod Chaudhary tells us he is worth a billion dollars. A ten percent of that could fund a new political party without having to worry about extorting others for funding and who knows it might for once help to bring real changes to this land?

- Guffadi is a grumpy old man who blogs at guffadi.blogspot.com. You may contact him at [email protected]