Mumbai: In the midst of unprecedented turmoil, Jay Nishaant, chairman of thinktank Nepal Democracy Foundation, says what many Nepalese are thinking: this moment was inevitable. The government, for all practical purposes, has vanished. “It was long overdue,” Nishaant says of PM K.P. Sharma Oli’s dramatic ouster. “The only question was when. Today, the time had come — and Oli finally had to go.” Where the former prime minister is now remains unclear. “Whether he has fled to Dubai or elsewhere, we do not know. What is certain is that he is neither at his house, the prime minister’s residence, nor anywhere we expected him to be.”

For Nishaant, the unrest is not a sudden implosion but the result of years of frustration. “The elections three, three-and-a-half years ago were reasonably fair and inclusive. But Nepal’s parliament has always struggled to produce absolute majorities, forcing coalition governments. Coalition politics quickly turned into politics of blackmail.” The Nepali Congress and the CPN-UML, despite being the largest parties, failed to form a stable government. “The key to power lay with Prachanda’s Maoists,” Nishaant explains. “Without his support, no government could survive.........

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