Dirty politics – Constituent Assembly membership sold for 1.6m per year

It was an open truth that the political parties had made the Constituent Assembly (CA)a very profitable business with the seats on sale during the 2008 election. The one who pays the most got the ticket in the poll and others "purchased" the nomination seats later. At least a dozen businessmen had managed to get in the CA to do their business there.

An example on how those people could get the ticket from the political parties surfaced when one of the CA member refused to pay the agreed sum to one of the political parties.

The CA member representing Nepal Janta Dal, Prof. Dr. Bishwanath Prasad Agrawal had agreed to pay 91% of all the remuneration and bonus received from the CA to the party. Apart from that, he had also agreed to pay the party Rs. 1 million every year. Nayapatrika has published the agreement document (attached) between the party and Agrawal. The party president of Janta Dal, Haricharan Sah released the agreement letter after the relationship between Sah and Agrawal became sour.

I wonder, if Dr. Agrawal had also purchased the titles Prof. and Dr. on the street. If a very small party like Janta Dal, with only two CA Members, can get such a large sum of money, the big parties like CPN Maoist, UML and Congress should have got several folds of that amount.

There are at least a dozen businessmen representing various political parties in the CA. One of the most prominent business man in CA is Binod Choudhury – the proprietor of the Choudhury Group represented Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist Leninist). Involvement of the group in a variety of industries like processed food, hotels, cigarettes and steel is sufficient to guess his business interest and investment potential in the political post (But, we don’t have any documentary proof so it is only an speculation).

Photos: Haricharan Sah (left) and Bishwanath Prasad Agrawal (right)