Many well-wishers have taken the Ass aside at watering holes in the past week to ask for the donkey's take on the fracas at the Maobaddie Plenum where the Prime Minister was collared by Com Prabhakaran, and Chairman Awesome was nearly hit over the head by a chair. Well, my response to all these fun and games is: "Thank heavens it wasn't a sofa." These guys used to fight over the chair, now the chair is doing the fighting for them. The Baddie party split into the School-bus burning CPNM (Loony) and the Chair-throwing UCPN-M (Revolting), but now even the Mau Party looks like it is on the verge of bifurcating into the Extremely Moderate Faction led by BRB, and the Moderately Extreme Faction led by PKD.

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Now that Professor Mooney has bared all in his chapter in Comrade Ian's book and exposed that PKD and BRB both gave it in writing to Indian leaders that they would never harm Indian interests in 2002 (in return for which they were allowed to stay on in Noida) it clears up in hindsight a lot of things that were puzzling us. The intermediary in these negotiations were the duo's Uncooked handlers who wanted a written guarantee that the Baddies would not pursue the fulfillment of their 40-point demand (that BRB himself drafted before the start of the war in 1996) among which were calls for a boycott of Hindi films, entry of Indian cars, renegotiations of all kinds of treaties, etc. Then in 2004, Comrade Awe-Inspiring decided to go back on his written commitment and declared a "tunnel War" against India, and got his comrades to start burrowing tunnels all across the Himalayan hinterland in anticipation of what he said was an imminent Indian invasion. PKD then threw BRB, Com Yummy and other sidekicks into the Gulag. But somehow they were made to patch up their differences, both said no hard feelings and shook hands. Which begs an answer to the biggest riddle in the Mau Mau Party: how come every time BRB and PKD are on the verge of coming to blows someone important makes them kiss and make up?

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The good professor cleared up a lot of things in his chapter but the only thing that is still a mystery is why Comrade CP was arrested in Madras, Kiran Kaka in Siliguri and then Comrade Ale and Upadro in Delhi?

Apparently, it was because of the lack of coordination between the domestic spooks at the International Baccalaureates (IB) and the international spooks at Uncooked (RAW). This is a golden opportunity for the Extremely Bad Baddies of the Hyphen Commies to stage a torch rally outside Lainchour demanding that India respect Nepal's territorial integrity and national sovereignty by terminating the activities of IB in Nepal, and working only with RAW since this is an independent foreign country where the Buddha was born.

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With elections around the corner, everything is about electoral fundraising, and cashing in on vote banks by stoking controversies involving squatters. It makes for strange bedfellows: erstwhile rivals the Moderately Left UML and the Extremely Left Baidya Maobaddies got together to shut down Lalitpur for three days. (By the way, now that Scott is gone, who is going to enforce the US visa ban on anyone calling bunds?) Not even the Prime Minister's party is above all this. At a time when a consortium of international creditors and investors, including the IFC, ADB and South Korean investors were about to sign on the dotted line for the 260 megawatt Upper Trisuli project, the Govt of Kathmandu suddenly pulled the plug on it because of an order from the First Lady's office. Apparently a sidekick wanted a kickback. What this means is that the country is not going to see the end to power cuts even by 2016. Bravo. Way to go. Attaboy. Solar Power Zindabad.

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Being the respectful student that he is, PM BRB seems to still think Professor Manmohan Singh is his guru. He has tried to do a NAREGA in Nepal, which guarantees at least 100 days of employment for every citizen. It has worked brilliantly in India, but in Nepal, just before elections, such a scheme is bound to be used for mass vote-buying.

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As the Ass predicted in the previous column, the Mau Mau Plenum has appointed a Chanbin Samiti to find out what happened to the Rs 9 arabs that the state exchequer gave to the cantonments for the upkeep of the guerrillas. The Committee is chaired by Comrade Postman. Talk about a fox guarding the chicken coop.