A day after thousands of people took to the street to welcome former king Gyanendra Shah in Kathmandu, political parties stepped up discussions on the activities of the pro-monarchy forces and their demand to restore the country’s status as a Hindu Kingdom.

The main opposition CPN (Maoist Centre) held a meeting of the party’s office bearers on Monday to discuss recent developments. The party abruptly halted the month-long ‘awakening campaign’ in Tarai-Madhesh districts a day before the pr0-monarchy demonstration.

Maoist Centre chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal and other top leaders of the party, who were leading the campaign, returned to Kathmandu on Saturday citing “the need for the party to shift priority to the centre from the districts”.

Top leaders at the Maoist Centre’s meeting concluded that there was no possibility of monarchy’s return in the country but the participation of the general public in the demonstrations to welcome the former king was an expression of frustration stemming from the present government’s failure to deliver.

Thousands of people gathered outside the Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu on Sunday when the former king returned to the Capital after spending a few weeks in the tourist city of Pokhara.

“Regressive forces have become active in recent days, and this is because of the present government’s utter failure,” Maoist Centre vice-chair Agni Prasad Sapkota, who is also party spokesperson, told journalists after the meeting. “People are frustrated with bad governance seen in every state body.”

The Maoist Centre also concluded that a strong resistance was needed against the former king’s increasing activism, which they believed aimed to reverse the republican system.

After the party’s meeting, Dahal met other leaders of political parties including those aligned under the Socialist Front, which is comprised of the Maoist Centre, the CPN (Unified Socialist), Janata Samajbadi Party-Nepal, Janamat Party and Communist Party of Nepal led by Netra Bikram Chand Biplav.

Sapkota said the party is discussing a mass protest with the leaders of the Socialist Front on Tuesday. Earlier, the front had decided to hold a mass rally on April 6, the same day the mass protest started in 1990 during the first people’s movement that reinstated multiparty democracy in Nepal.

In light of the changed scenario, the Maoist Centre is now considering organising the mass demonstration a bit earlier. Sapkota said the date will be confirmed after the meeting on Tuesday.

Immediately after the party’s meeting, Maoist Centre chief Dahal met Unified Socialist chair Madhav Kumar Nepal.

After the meeting, Dahal said they weren’t at all frightened by the activities of pro-monarchy forces. “People are angry and frustrated with the working of the current government,” Dahal told journalists. “The government should take the responsibility for this.”

Unified Socialist chair Nepal blamed CPN-UML Chairman and Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli for the resurgence of “reactionary elements”. He attributed it to the current government’s incompetence and bad governance. Nepal, however, stressed that protecting the system is a primary responsibility of the republican political forces.

“Reactionary and status-quoists have started raising their heads. We have taken this matter seriously,” he said at the party’s secretariat meeting on Monday. He instructed party members to stay alert and united in favour of the republic system.

While opposition parties have accused the current government of incompetence, claiming it has given reactionary forces an opportunity, Nepali Congress chief and key ruling party leader Sher Bahadur Deuba described Sunday’s demonstration organised by the royalist groups as a ‘regular event’.

“I don’t see a wave in favour of the royalists. What happened in Kathmandu on Sunday created a lot of noise, nothing more,” Deuba told journalists at Dhangadhi airport, where he had reached to address his party’s provincial meeting.

Prime Minister and UML chair Oli also tried to downplay Sunday’s demonstration.

He instead tried to ridicule the pro-Hindu and pro-monarchy forces’ protest saying it was backed by outsiders. He was referring to a photo of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath spotted during the demonstration.

“We are not in such a fragile state that we need to use a foreign leader’s photo to organise a rally,” Oli said while inaugurating a convention of the NGO Federation and the Citizens’ Conference. “We have no time for undemocratic, anti-system, and unconstitutional activities.”

Meanwhile, Rabi Lamichhane, chief of Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), said the government must handle the situation deftly with ordinary people joining the demonstration. Lamichhane, too, lambasted the present government for its inefficiency in governance and delivery.

“Isn’t it a two-thirds majority government?” Lamichhane said while talking to journalists in Rupandehi. “Whatever is happening now, the two-thirds majority government must take responsibility for it.”

Political analysts say the government and major political parties should take the protest seriously.

The demonstration is the result of the collective failure of political parties, the successive governments they led as well as their leadership, says Geja Sharma Wagle, a political analyst.

“The utter failure of the new and old political forces has given rise to frustration among the people,” Wagle said. “This is more a product of the political leadership’s failure than that of the current political system.”

Wagle added that top leaders of major parties should introspect and work to reform their own outfits instead of wasting their time blaming each other.

The Maoist Centre also acknowledges the need for a common stance among the political parties that signed the 12-point agreement in 2005.

“As the government led by these two parties [the Congress and UML] has failed to perform, royalists have found a ground,” Sapkota said. “We will partner with them on the condition that they first correct themselves.”

The 12-point agreement was signed in 2005 in New Delhi, India, between the then seven mainstream political parties and then underground CPN (Maoist) after the then-King Gyanendra disbanded the government and took state power in his own hands.

Based on that agreement, the political parties launched a movement against the monarchy in 2006, which ultimately led to the monarchy’s demise.