Excerpts of Girija Prasad Koirala's speech, 14 July

"In a constitutional monarchy we uphold that 'the king does not err" and we take responsibility for any mistakes made. We should not expose the monarch and say the king did this; at least the prime minister should stop saying that. The prime minister came to see me at my house after dissolving parliament and declaring the mid-term elections. I asked him, 'Sher Bahadurji, what have you done. I had said that you should keep the government running. I had told you not to extend the emergency immediately, that we now have the Terrorism and Disruptive Activities (prevention and control) Act and we should try and implement it . we can impose the emergency if that does not work . how could you declare elections.

He said, "Khoi ke bhayo, ke bhayo" [Well, I don't know what happened.] Later I met Chiranjibi (Wagle) and told him "You are well educated and have done much politics, but you converted the meeting into a General Convention.at least you could have collected the signatures of those present and petitioned the centre (Congress Party), which would have prevented this problem." I asked him why, he said, "Well, I don't know what happened." That is why everything that has happened is still unexplained.

And now the Nepali Congress should get out of that 'who knows what happened' mode. The Congress must pull its forces together to protect democracy; I personally do not want anything out of it. There is nothing left for me to achieve, no place to step down to, and so my only objective is to protect democracy. Protecting democracy is about preserving the future of the youth of this country. If there is no democracy, our youth will age, wasted, and others will come and ask them to step aside (as has happened to me). I believe a moment is coming in the history of the party where it will take a major step, I am working to make that happen.

.Even the power of the sword or guns or the pen cannot stand in front of the strength of morals. A bullet may be able to kill me but not the objectives and goals I am fighting for. When we're proceeding with this moral strength, neither the sword can kill us, nor can the pen."