BJP Leader Vijaya Chauthaiwale in Kathmandu On a Power-packed Visit

Against the backdrop of the Pahalgam attack and increasing worry over government instability in Nepal, Vijaya Chauthaiwale, chief of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s Department of Foreign Affairs, is in Kathmandu on a three-day visit.

Chauthaiwale arrived in Kathmandu on Wednesday after which all doors at the corridors of powers have swung open for him, as pictures and texts posted on his X account show.

The BJP leader has thus far met such powerful figures as Minister for Foreign Affairs Arzu Rana Deuba, Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba, Minister for Home Affairs Ramesh Lekhak and other who’s who of the NC such as Shekhar Koirala, Prakash Sharan Mahat, Gagan Thapa, Udaya Shumsher Rana, CPN (Maoist Center) Chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal, Maoist leader Janardan Sharma and CPN (Unified Socialist) Chair Madhav Kumar Nepal.

About the meeting with Minister Lekhak, he wrote: In my first meeting in Kathmandu, I had (a) warm meeting with Home Minister of Nepal Shri Ramesh Lekhak. We discussed terrorist attack in Pahagam, in which one Nepali citizen also succumbed. He assured that Nepal strongly stands with India in fight against terrorism.

The visit also comes amid continuing speculations that India's ruling BJP remains unhappy with Nepal's current Prime Minister and CPN-UML President, KP Sharma Oli, though Oli has, historically, been very accommodative of Indian interests in Nepal as his role in the passage of the much controversial Mahakali Treaty through the Parliament and awarding of lucrative export-oriented hydropower projects like the 900-MW Arun III project to Indian state-owned entities show.