Nepalis Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba has assured his party members of forming a task force to look into the border issue with China in the northern Humla district. Several Nepali lawmakers had alleged that China had encroached upon their land in the districts and illegally erected buildings there. However, the government had never publicly acknowledged the border row with China. 

This week the ruling alliance released the common minimum program, a vision document for the government, which mentioned the boundary row with India while ignored the same with its northern neighbor China. 

Several MPs from Deuba’s Nepali Congress, the biggest party in the ruling alliance, raised the absence of the issue from the recently released vision document during a recently held meeting of senior party leaders.   

According to a report in the Kathmandu Post, Deuba has assured these leaders that the government will form a task force to look into the matter. Significantly, it was a panel of the Nepali Congress leaders last year, when there were in opposition, which raised the issue of encroachment on the land Nepal lays claim over with the then Oli government. 

Nepal should be sensitive about its boundary issues both with India and China and must seek a solution through bilateral talks, said Bimalendra Nidhi, former deputy prime minister who was present in the meeting. 

“While the border issues with India have been incorporated into the government’s Common Minimum Programme, similar concerns relating to China have not,” he was quoted as saying by The Kathmandu Post. 

Deuba had called a meeting of senior leaders to solicit views on holding the party’s 14th general convention and the Common Minimum Programme (CMP), among others.

Significantly, the common minimum program categorically talks about boundary issues with India, including Kalapani, Lipulekh, and Limpiyadhura, it has not said anything on the border issue, especially in Humla, with China. 

Jeevan Bahadur Shahi, a party leader from Karnali, the province where Humla lies, had last year submitted a report, detailing the encroachment, to the party’s headquarters. Media reports last year reported that an internal report--which was never made public-- by the Home ministry had found the boundary dispute with China. 

(SAM)