With the formal launch of Nepal’s youngest political party Naya Shakti drawing closer, Hisila Yami has been busy around-the-clock, getting the organisation in place. Yami, along with her husband, former Nepali prime minister Baburam Bhattarai, walked out of the United Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), or UCPN-M, in September 2015, less than a week after the promulgation of the country’s new constitution. Both of them had been key architects of the constitution, along with UCPN-M chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal, also known as Prachanda, the erstwhile leader of the ten-year-long Maoist insurgency. While they maintained their uneasy alliance over the years, the Maoist support for the Nepali constitution, which led to protests in the Madhesi plains, caused the final breach.Yami, who was in Delhi recently to invite senior Indian politicians from various parties to the inauguration function in Kathmandu on June 12, spoke at length to The Wire. She said that recent ‘flip-flops’ by Dahal further justified her decision to walk out from the party. A former minister, 57-year-old Yami also said that she usually felt “sorry” for India and claimed that Nepalese citizens are still puzzled about what exactly New Delhi wants. In a follow-up phone conversation, Yami spoke about how she and Bhattarai plan to build a political party structure from scratch and how it will also give space to ‘oppressed’ groups, including transgender people.
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