I am truly baffled by CK Lal's State of the State column 'Blind Alley' (#216), where he attempts to portray Girija Prasad Koirala as a man of steel, integrity and as someone who sticks to his position. Lal's premises and assumptions are full of fallacies. His argument for the revival of the House of Representatives makes little sense given the fact that he cites only one particluar premise to prove his point. However, he adeptly discards many more reasons why Girija is probably the main man responsible for the dissolution of the parliament in the first place. Girija and others have made a mockery of parliamentary democracy over the last ten years, using it to scuttle democracy whenever it was politically inconvenient. They have built themselves and their party apparatus at the expense of the people. Girija is the same person who defied the Supreme Courts orders and is being sued for contempt of court. In a civil society, as he mentions, it is the rule of law, but Girija thinks the law does not apply to him. Is this a man of steel and principle? Koirala lives in a hallow cocoon of neo-Sri Tin Maharaj ideology. I am sure writing a weekly column is hard given the condition of the nation. If Lal can't think of a good column, he could take a sabbatical.

SN Singh,
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