KATHMANDU: Chairman of Nepal Communist Party (NCP) Pushpa Kamal Dahal today revealed that Girija Prasad Koirala, the then President of the Nepali Congress, had suggested him launch ‘major attacks’ on army barracks during the insurgency period.

Speaking at a program to commemorate the ‘People’s War’ launched by the then CPN-Maoist party, Dahal, who led the decade-long insurgency in the country, recalled late Koirala suggesting him to carry out major attacks.

“We (Girija and Dahal) were in regular contact, almost every day,” Dahal told the event at NCP central office in Dhumbarahi on Thursday, adding, “To my bewilderment, he used to provoke me to launch military attacks on district headquarters.”

The ‘extraordinary’ or ‘even strange’ association between the then Maoist and the political parties, he claimed, led to the downfall of the institution of monarchy in the country. “Finally, we established a republic,” he said.

Dahal further claimed that NC was bound to join the alliance after the Maoist and the then CPN-UML agreed to write a new constitution through a Constituent Assembly.

“The strange alliance between the then Maoist and the agitating seven-parties was able to topple down the monarchy,” he said adding, “And you can see the result now. Nepal is now a federal republic”.

He boasted of making a safe-landing of the armed conflict setting an example to the whole world by agreeing on a peace process. “There are examples of rebel leaders being killed, which, however, did not happen in Nepal.”