Moving ahead with its concern over the Bhutan refugees in Nepal, the CPI(M) is taking up the issue at the highest level with the Nepal Government.

The party Politburo member Sitaram Yechury, who is in Kathmandu, will be meeting Nepal Prime Minister GP Koirala and Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister K P Sharma Oli. He will be taking up the issue during these meetings.

Yechury who is also making an assessment of the situations with regard to the constituent Assembly elections in Nepal and the peace process. He also met with Prachanda, Chairman of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), and Baburam Bhattrai on Monday.

There have been demands from various quarters about India’s intervention on the subject of Bhutan refugees in Nepal. “This issue is an important one and I will be raising it”, Yechury told The Indian Express.

This issue also has a domestic angle in West Bengal, incidentally a Left-ruled state. Some of the refugees who had crossed over had demanded that they be allowed to go to Bhutan through the West Bengal border, resulting in tensions and police firing in May. In fact, the refugees can cross the Mechi river that marks West Bengal’s border with Nepal. The CPI(M) has good relations with the present ruling dispensation in Kathmandu.

It may be recalled that earlier this month, during Yechury’s visit to Kathmandu, a delegation of Bhutanese refugees representing around one lakh of them in Nepal, submitted a memorandum to him, requesting the CPI(M) leader to seek New Delhi’s intervention on their behalf.

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