On 25 May, women, children and Social Welfare Minister Khadga Bahadur Biswokarma reached the village of Lui in Mugu by helicopter to inaugurate a higher secondary school. No sooner had the minister launched into his speech about building a New Nepal that the villagers started their own chant: "First food then elections."

The people of Mugu view themselves as 'citizens without a country'. The average lifespan of Mugu people is 36, there are no roads, agricultural production is enough for barely three months, and communicable diseases are endemic. The lack of jobs means most of Mugu's young abandon all hope and seek their fortunes as labourers in India. There is no higher education campus and only 18 percent of the men and nine percent of the women are literate.

The people in Lui had walked for two days to see the minister on 25 May. The crowd included women balancing babies on their hips and many elderly people. All had come to tell of their sorrows and pain. And when the minister started throwing around political verbiage like constituent assembly and republicanism, the Mugulis were enraged. Their demands were simple: first feed our hunger and then we talk about politics.