Rastriya Prajatantra Party Nepal
Encyclopedia
Rastriya Prajatantra Party Nepal is a Right-wing, Conservative, and royalist
Monarchism
Monarchism is the advocacy of the establishment, preservation, or restoration of a monarchy as a form of government in a nation. A monarchist is an individual who supports this form of government out of principle, independent from the person, the Monarch.In this system, the Monarch may be the...

, political party
Political party
A political party is a political organization that typically seeks to influence government policy, usually by nominating their own candidates and trying to seat them in political office. Parties participate in electoral campaigns, educational outreach or protest actions...

 in Nepal
Nepal
Nepal , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked sovereign state located in South Asia. It is located in the Himalayas and bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by the Republic of India...

, a splinter group of the Rastriya Prajatantra Party.

Rastriya Prajatantra Party was established on May 29, 1990 A.D. with an objective of providing an alternative democratic force to the nation. Nationalism, democracy and liberalism have remained as the three main ideological pillars of the party.

The party supports retaining Nepal as a Hindu
Hinduism
Hinduism is the predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent. Hinduism is known to its followers as , amongst many other expressions...

 monarchy. The party was registered with the Election Commission of Nepal
Election Commission of Nepal
The Election Commission of Nepal is the body responsible for monitoring elections, as well as registering parties and candidates and reporting election outcomes, in Nepal. It was born out of the 1950 revolution in Nepal, and was established in law in 1951, although it has been changed somewhat by...

 ahead of the April 2008 Constituent Assembly election
Nepalese Constituent Assembly election, 2008
A general election for the Constituent Assembly was held in Nepal on 10 April 2008 after having been postponed from earlier dates of 7 June 2007 and 22 November 2007. The Nepalese Constituent Assembly will draft a new constitution; it will therefore decide, amongst other things, on the issue of...

. Ahead of the election, the party sought to form a front of royalist parties.

History

Rastriya Prajatantra Party or RPP was initially led by Kamal Thapa
Kamal Thapa
Kamal Thapa is the current president of Nepal's only royalist party, the Rastriya Prajatantra Party-Nepal. He served as a Home Minister during King Gyanendra's direct rule in 2006 until the king was forced to handover power to Gerija Prasad Koirala of the Nepali Congress Party and his allies with...

, home minister under King Gyanendra's direct rule. Thapa resigned as party chair in October 2006.

RPP won the largest number of mayors in the 2006 municipal election. Rajaram Shrestha won in the capital Kathmandu; also Khadga Prasad Palungua in Dharan
Dharan, Nepal
Dharan is a major city in eastern Nepal, in the Sunsari District, situated on foothills of Mahabharat Range with southern tip touching the edge of the Terai at an altitude of 1148 ft . It serves as a trading post between the hilly region and the plains of Terai region. It was once the...

, Pralhad Prasad Shah Haluwai in Biratnagar, Ram Shankar Shah in Jaleswor
Jaleswor
Jaleswar is the headquarters of Mahottari District, Nepal. It is located at an altitude of 53 metres ....

, Sumitra Madhinne in Bhaktapur
Bhaktapur
Bhaktapur , also Bhadgaon or Khwopa is an ancient Newar town in the east corner of the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal. It is located in Bhaktapur District in the Bagmati Zone...

, Madhukar Prasad Adhikari in Hetauda
Hetauda
Hetauda is a town in the Makwanpur District of the Narayani Zone in southern Nepal. It is also the administrative headquarters of the Makwanpur district. At the time of the 1991 Nepal census it had a population of 53,836 people living in 10,420 individual households...

, Bimal Prasad Shrivastav in Birgunj, Bidur Khadka in Baglung
Baglung
Baglung, is a town in western Nepal, 275 km west of Kathmandu. It is the administrative headquarters of Baglung District and Dhawalagiri Zone. Baglung is a major business, financial, educational, and healthcare center for the people of Kali Gandaki valley....

 and Bhimsen Thapa in Pokhara
Pokhara
Pokhara Sub-Metropolitan City is the second largest city of Nepal. Pokhara is city of close to 350,000 inhabitants in central Nepal located at 28.25°N, 83.99°E, which is the centre of the country from east to west or from north to south, 198 km west of Kathmandu or 90 km west of Mugling, and...

. However this election was boycotted by most major parties.

In April 2006, the Nepal Samata Party (Socialist)
Nepal Samata Party (Socialist)
Nepal Samata Party was a small pro-monarchy political party in Nepal. Its president was Dayananda Thapa ....

 merged into the party.

In January 2007 the splinter group Rastriya Prajatantra Party (Nationalist) of Rajeswor Devkota rejoined RPP-N. Bidwai Parishad of Jit Bahadur Arjel also merged with RPP-N.

On March 2, 2008, Rabindra Nath Sharma stepped down as party chairman, citing health reasons. Kamal Thapa
Kamal Thapa
Kamal Thapa is the current president of Nepal's only royalist party, the Rastriya Prajatantra Party-Nepal. He served as a Home Minister during King Gyanendra's direct rule in 2006 until the king was forced to handover power to Gerija Prasad Koirala of the Nepali Congress Party and his allies with...

 again became chairmain.

RPP won four seats in the April 2008 Constituent Assembly election. At the first meeting of the Constituent Assembly on May 28, 2008, RPP was the only party to oppose the declaration of a republic; there were 560 votes in favor of a republic and only the RPP-Nepal's four votes against. Thapa subsequently said on June 20, 2008 that the country faced an impending "disaster", urging alertness among the party. He said that the party's policies and programmes would remain the same despite the political change. On July 13, 2008, he described the abolition of the monarchy as merely "an interim decision", saying that the RPP-Nepal sought the restoration of the monarchy.

The party boycotted the July 2008 presidential election
Nepalese presidential election, 2008
An indirect presidential election was held in Nepal on 19 July 2008 with a presidential run-off on 21 July. The Nepalese Constituent Assembly elected in April 2008 elected a new President and Vice-President after the Fifth Amendment to the Interim Constitution was passed on 14 July...

in the Constituent Assembly, on the grounds that the major parties were treating the election as a partisan contest.

In August 2008 some senior leaders, like Rabindra Nath Sharma and Rajeshwor Devkota, left the party and joined the RPP. Mr. Rabindra Nath, the previous RPP Nepal's senior leader and later entered RPP again, died on November 22, 2008.

External links

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