Kathmandu, Sept. 22: A 71-year-old pro-democracy fighter who served three years in India’s Tihar Jail for hijacking an aircraft is now the new kingmaker of Nepal, winning a hotly contested election to head the oldest party in the country.
Mr Sushil Koirala, first cousin of late prime minister and strongman of Nepali politics, Girija Prasad Koirala, has pipped Koirala’s former protege, Mr Sher Bahadur Deuba, to become the new president of the centrist Nepali Congress(NC), the second-largest party in the parliament.
The victory means the Koirala clan, known as the Gandhi family of Nepal and close to India’s ruling Congress party as well as the socialists, will continue to dominate Nepal’s politics.
Mr Koirala spent several years in exile in India after joining pro-democracy movement in Nepal under NC. He was was also part of the group that was entrusted with hijacking an Air India plane in Nepal to raise money for his party’s armed movement.