Less than a Million!

Our Emperor tells us that he spent less than a million Rupees to win the election from Chitwan and his opponent also managed to keep his expenses at the same range. If all of our politicians followed our Emperor's frugal spending habits then standing up for elections would not be expensive and political parties would not have to hand out tickets to byaparis. 

Then we could have hundreds of Lal Babu Pandits standing up for election rather than hundreds of slimy contractors and shady con artists playing politics in this country.

Let us congratulate both of their cadres for not asking for fuel, khaja and other expenses during their election campaigns to keep the cost down for their candidates.  Yes, we need such cadres to help politicians to not waste millions of Rupees on election campaigns. 

We need cadres who will bring their own thermos of milk tea, sel-roti and even a bottle or two of Petrol from their own home. And our candidates should not waste money on loud speakers, vehicles, pamphlets and banners. Just SMS your vision to potential voters and maybe in the future be allowed to raise funds for their campaigns through SMS as well. 

I think that would be more transparent and of course, there should be a limit on how much one can send from one's phone or else, this country will run out of SIM cards during elections.

If our politicians can keep their cost down then they won't have to ask for donations from byaparis, contractors and other con artists. But of course, when you are a contractor yourself, you really don’t' have to ask for campaign donations. You can foot the bill yourself. But if you are a career politician then you will also ask for contributions for your election campaigns, party conventions, your son's wedding and for everything else.

It doesn't matter if our politicians have amassed billions of Rupees through kickbacks, they will not hesitate to ask our fake-VAT bill byaparis for more come election time. After all, our greedy parasites want more and more, both from the state and our byaparis. And byaparis are more than happy to dole out the dough so that they can continue to evade taxes and make themselves and our civil servants and netas richer while the State goes broke.

If we were to do a poll today, 99% of the folks would find it hard to believe that our Emperor spent only Rs 994,542 in Chitwan. His opponent , a contractor also spent a few thousand Rupees less than our Emperor.  If we were to do the math then our Emperor spent about Rs 20 per voter in Chitwan. So does that mean a cup of tea is enough to swing votes in Nepali politics? Not really but that is what our Emperor expects us to believe.

If we were to believe our Emperor then it is much cheaper to run for the seat to the federal parliament than ward chairperson or even for Mayor. We hear that our didi became the Mayor of Bharatpur after spending Karods of Rupees. Nobody knows the exact figure but hydropower experts tell us that you could build a 2 to 3 MW project with that kind of money!

Even the guy who became the ward chairperson in my ward tells me that that he had to spend more than a million Rupees to win a thousand votes. Either my ward chairperson is lying or our Emperor received free tea and masu bhat for his cadres from the local chiya pasals and bhojan grihas!

Well, we really won't know the exact figure because our politicians and political parties do not submit their financial details on time and even if they do, it's mostly fake bills and the amount mentioned  does not match with the number of vehicles and cadres used for their ghar-dailo karyakarams. 

Even if a politician has like 50 muscled mundreys and another 50 hardworking cadres running around, it would cost at least, if you find the cheapest place around,  five hundred Rupees to provide them with masu bhat twice a day and  a plate of momo and chiya and aloo in the morning.  

I think our politicians will spend a million in chiya kharcha alone during election campaigns. Something really doesn’t add up but who are we to accuse our Emperor for fudging his bills?

Our Emperor's friend, Mr. Sumargi is in the news lately. He doesn’t seem to like the media folks snooping around his finances. Yes, Mr. Sumargi should be left alone. He should be applauded, celebrated and given the President's medal or something close to that for his success.

Let us not blame him or accuse him of misdeeds just because he happens to be close to our Emperor. Sumargi must have rich foreign friends around the world who are willing to invest in his projects. Yes, we need folks like Sumargi in this country. We need con artists who get close to our honest netas and corrupt them. 

We need byaparis who will work with foreign agents to influence our netas and take this country down the drain. After all, New Nepal is a fun place for our byaparis and chor netas. For the rest of us, we just have to put up with the corruption in this land and exhaust our savings to be able to afford two decent meals per day.

Guffadi is a grumpy old man who blogs at guffadi.blogspot.com. You may contact him at maguffadi@gmail.com

National Unity Day

The late King Prithivi Narayan (PN) Shah was until a decade ago considered the person who unified this country. Instead of more than two dozen kingdoms, we became one country and the folks from Gorkha got to enjoy the power and the freebies that comes with it. 

Yes, the winners do write the history but every century we have different players and they would want to rewrite history to suit their own interest.

Let’s look at our chimekis. Modi cannot just tell his fellow citizens to forget about the British and the Mughal Empire. And the Chinese cannot just ignore the fact that once upon a time they too were under the Emperor till Mao finally decided to have fun. 

And we Nepalese, whether we like it or not cannot just ignore the fact that the House of Shah did unify this country then and then came the Ranas who played their part and then the Pancheys, so-called democrats and now, we have our republicans who tell us that we are a federal republic of Nepal!

But before our House of Shah could really rule the county, we had to deal with the courtiers who conspired against each other and used violence so that they could play the political musical chair for the next two hundred years.  

Then we became the ‘rip-off-the-public’ and our government decided that it would be better if we forgot our past, our history and just moved on the with the new players in town. But we should never forget our past, even if it is good or bad.

And we know that our political players of  today are no better than the five families who fought with each other then. Now, we have five major political parties and the so-called top leaders of these parties will work together to share the loot while their cadres will fight with each other for no apparent reason. 

At least, our politicians do not have to worry about the King anymore and they can now freely loot and boot and shoot as they rule this country. 

Gyanu Uncle has no one to blame but himself because once you get hold of the Kurchi, you have to make sure that you do the right thing because all good things do come to an end someday. Empires don’t last forever, be it the Romans or the Pharaohs or the Greeks or the Mughal. 

Even today, our former King can be relevant if he opens his own party like the former Royals of India. But it seems that he has no interest to be our Chief Minister someday. If we had a politician like Mandela, then that person would have at least made Gyanu Uncle, the official Chief Guest for all Jatras in the valley.

And this year, our government has figure out that a decade later, it’s okay to celebrate PN because it’s not a touchy subject anymore. Our President gets to honor the late King from Gorkha and thank him for at least unifying the country then. 

Today, we need a new PN but not to unify this country by using violence but by promoting tolerance and peace and working to make sure that our chors get their act right before it’s too late through reconciliation and forgiveness.

Let us at least thank our government for celebrating National Unity Day on the occasion of PN’s 296th birthday. Our President and Prime Monster garlanded the statue of PN outside Singha Durbar. And as usual, our government decided to give us a public holiday so that our civil servant can get a day off from work and enjoy playing cards and spent quality time with their friends instead of family. 

Kamal Dai, who is still our Deputy Prime Monster until this government leaves the building, decided to organize a separate function to celebrate PN’s birthday. His party, Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) is no longer a national party and Kamal Dai has not much to do for the next five years either. 

But he still wants to be relevant and wants to play the ‘House of Shah’ card for his own personal benefit. We all know that our Panchey players don’t have much space in New Nepal and the people have at least given the mandate to our commies to govern this country for the next five years.

So, let’s hope our comrades will continue to make National Unity Day a day to celebrate our unity in diversity. Let’s hope that our politicians will not play the ‘ethnic’ card to divide us and make the people turn against each other while they continue to make shady deals behind closed doors while drinking bideshi whiskeys.

PN showed us that it is possible to unite this country. Before, they had to use violence and let us hope , we will get a new PN who will practice tolerance to unify us all. Even today, PN’s belief that those who receive and offer bribes are this country’s worst enemies ring true but there is only one honest person left in this country and he is our crazy Dr. KC! 

We, the people are just the silent majority who allow our incompetent and corrupt netas and sarkari hakims to roll over us without being accountable for their misdeeds. 

Guffadi is a grumpy old man who blogs at guffadi.blogspot.com. You may contact him at maguffadi@gmail.com

The Gang of Five

It's been nearly a month since we got done with our federal elections and it will take another month or two before our 'lefties' finally take charge and finally make this country prosperous. 

Yes, everything that has to do with the government moves in a snail's pace in this land.  No wonder, Melmachi has taken us decades and our contractors are not done digging our roads in the capital. Maybe, by next year, we will finally get to use the water from Melmachi. Until then, be prepared to face dusty roads and traffic jams.

Yes, our communists want to make us rich and finally, our green passports might matter.But we know the difference between what has been promised and what will be fulfilled.  

Yes, we are one of the few fortunate ones where communists still matter.  Castro's Cuba has the cigars while Lil' Kim's North Korea has nukes and what will Oli's Nepal have? 

Our Kangaroos are still trying to figure out what where they went wrong.  They should not lose hope because we have seen it all. The Kangaroos have been in power before, back in the 60s and in the 90s and they know very well that the time will come again to lead this country down the drain. 

In our 'New Nepal', we now have only five major political parties who will get to make some moolah and divide the loot and positions amongst their cadres. Well, the lefties will get to enjoy most of the freebies but you never know when alliances break down and our chor netas switch sides to form another government. 

For our politicians, it's all about sharing power and loot while the common folks only get the boot and if we do protests then those in power ask our security personnel to even shoot at us. We though the Shree Tins were bad then. We thought the Shree Panch was no better. We thought the Kangaroos were even worse. But now let us see how far our communists will go to enjoy the loot! When will our politicians realize that meritocracy is the way to go instead of only making sure that nepotism rules Nepal?

If we were to really believe our two communist kings, Oli and Prachanda, then we will finally get one big commie party in this country. It's about time, Dr Saheb, Rabindra Mishra dai and Bijukche Bajey got together and formed one single party so that they too can be a national party next time around. 

If Lee Kwan Yee could share the space with the communists before he took it all then what’s wrong with our young turks sharing the space with other socialists and opportunists for now? After all, this is politics and you have to learn from our Emperor Prachanda on how to play the game. He can swing both ways, sideways, everywhere. He can bend it far more than Beckham.

I don't know what Dr Saheb will be doing in the parliament? Yes, he gets free security, chiya kharcha and other perks for being our former PM but what will he do being an independent lawmaker in the House? 

Maybe, he should start teaching part-time and utilize his time instead. Yes, thanks a lot for the road-widening projects in the valley. Instead of making our cities pedestrian and cycle-friendly, we think having wide roads with speeding Micros and motorcycles make us a metropolis.

Our two Madeshi parties are here to stay. Let us hope they will do something good for the plains instead of playing the 'ethnic' card and just looting the state funds. Our Madeshi politicians should work together to help the people instead of extorting from their own for government jobs. 

The people have chosen you and do not fail them because in five years, we have the option of choosing the person you don’t get along with.  

Our Communists seem to be busy drinking chiya in the morning and something else in the evening to beat the winter cold. They just want the current caretaker government to announce temporary capitals and appoint governors and when they take over, they would love to scrap it all and do it their way. Yes, that's our way of doing things in this land. 

It really doesn't matter if it is a good plan or is best for the country. When the new person comes, he or she has to have his or her own way even if it means bleeding the country dry. Everybody who wants something from the government seems to be divided along party lines. No wonder, the peon is sometimes more powerful than the hakim saheb in some offices!

Our provincial assembly members will also have to wait for another month or two before they get to do some sunbathing while drinking tea and doing nothing. Our government has yet to appoint governors or even name temporary provincial capitals or even for now fix a temporary place for the provincial lawmakers to hang out. 

So what's new in this beautiful land of ours? Nothing to be optimistic about but thank God, at least the prices of vegetables have come down compared to the previous months. 

Let us all have tomato soup and let Deuba and his courtiers enjoy their free lunch for now and let us hope our comrades will do their homework well so that once they take over, they will be better prepared to deliver instead of taking another year or two to get their own comrades on board.  After all, our politicians are good at forming factions and our communist parties are no better. 

Maybe, our communists should just go with 'collective leadership' where seven or nine  folk do their thing. Then at least, both parties will finally be able to accommodate their senior leaders or else, it's back to the same story of musical chairs and back to the same old circus acts.  

Guffadi is a grumpy old man who blogs at guffadi.blogspot.com. You may contact him at maguffadi@gmail.com