Nepal's former prime minister K P Sharma Oli on Friday said that if his party returns to power in the November 20 parliamentary election, it will reclaim the Himalayan nation's territories claimed by India.
Inaugurating his party's nationwide election campaign in Darchula district in far-West Nepal near the Nepal-India border, the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist–Leninist) (CPN-UML) Chairman said: "We will bring back land, including Kalapani, Lipulek and Limpiyadhura."
Oli, 70, said his party was committed to defending the nation, adding: "We will not spare even an inch of our land." Meanwhile, Nepali Congress president and Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba said efforts were on to bring back Nepal's encroached land on the basis of diplomatic initiatives and mutual relations.
Deuba made these remarks in his home district Dadeldhura in far-West Nepal while launching his election campaign. His statement came after Oli's remarks.
The issues of Kalapani, Lipulekh, Limpiyadhura, and other territories will be resolved through diplomatic initiatives, Deuba said while addressing the election campaign.
Former prime Minister Dr. Baburam Bhattarai has, however, asked Oli not to make national integrity an agenda for election.
No party or person should make the country's territorial integrity an election agenda, Bhattarai tweeted, without mentioning Oli's name.
Giving the examples of former King Mahendra, who banned political parties by dismissing the elected government in 1960 and atrocities carried out by Hitler, the former prime minister also said only people inspired by fascism made nationalism a political agenda.
India's bilateral ties with Nepal came under strain under then prime minister Oli after India opened an 80-km-long strategically crucial road connecting the Lipulekh pass with Dharchula in Uttarakhand on May 8, 2020.
Nepal protested the inauguration of the road claiming that it passed through its territory. Days later, Nepal came out with a new map showing Lipulekh, Kalapani and Limpiyadhura as its territories. India reacted sharply to the move.
In June last year, Nepal's Parliament approved the new political map of the country featuring areas that India maintains belong to it. After Nepal released the map, India reacted sharply, calling it a "unilateral act" and cautioning Kathmandu that such "artificial enlargement" of territorial claims will not be acceptable to it.
Oli, the leader of the main opposition party, also accused India of presenting a fake origin of the Kali River.
He claimed that the Kalapani area in Byas Rural Municipality in the district was known to the world due to the 'Chuchche Naksha' (pointed map) of Nepal issued during his leadership. Nepal will hold elections for federal Parliament and provincial assemblies in a single phase on November 20, 2022.
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