BBC: There have been so many charges against you of late. What hurts you the most?
Baburam Bhattarai: I feel bad because some quarters have questioned my patriotism while I have been striving to take nationalism and democracy together for the last 30 years and I believe that the two are inseparable.

The charges seem to be based on contradictions between your party's official line toward India and what you have been doing there?
That is not the case. We don't look at India only as a country, we look at the people there after categorising them into different classes.

Your own chairman (Prachanda) says you have been meeting the Indian officialdom.
It's not just India. In the absence of an understanding between India, China, the United States and the European Union, there will be no sustainable outlet and peace in Nepal. Based on that concept, we are making diplomatic moves contacting these powers. Comrade Krishna Bahadur Mahara and I have been sent here (India) to do international work.

India has declared your group terrorists. Yet you were not arrested?
Even the United States of America has said that the Maoist power can't be quelled through military might. Everyone agrees this needs political outlet.

But India has not withdrawn the terrorist tag on you.
You see similar development in all movements- Palestine and South Africa. Diplomatic contacts are held through back channels and terrorist tags are finally withdrawn.

How come the Indian intelligence had no idea about your presence in New Delhi?
One must not forget that India has a billion people.

What did you talk about with Indian and Nepali leaders?
History after the 1950 movement has shown that the monarchy and the army under it are the main obstacles of democracy. That is why, we have been proposing that we, the revolutionaries who believe in a new people's republic and those forces who believe in simple parliamentary democracy need to work for a common goal of the people's republic and to provide a forward looking outlet to Nepal by ending the monarchy. Some progress has been made. We have been demanding the election of a constituent assembly under international monitoring. We believe that the new constitution made through the constituent assembly will pave way for an election that will ultimately bring about the real representatives of the people.