On 2013-04-25 Gore Bahadur Khapangi, who was unconscious after a serious head injury in a motorcycle accident in Kathmandu, died on 8-27-2016 at the capital's neuro hospital during treatment.
In 2022, when he was the Minister of Women, Children and Social Welfare in Lokendra Bahadur Chand's government, many saw the tika from the king's hand as the 'critical moment' of Khapangi.
When he became a minister in the royal government, Khapangi was the general secretary of the Rashtriya Janamukti Party (Rjmp) and the president of the Nepal Magar Association. But since he became a minister, his relationship with both organizations has become bitter.
While he was a minister in the government lead by Lokendra Bahadur Chand, the Democratic Janamukti Party was born under the leadership of Khapangi, but this party was unconditionally merged into the National Janamukti Party after 6 years. And Khapangi became a senior leader of the said united party. Khapangi tried to take the leadership in the 4th national convention of Rashtriya Janamukti Party 2067 Nawalparasi. But he lost to MS Thapa by a narrow margin. After that, he seems to be gradually moving away from the party again. It seems that the party leadership has not done or does not want to keep Khapangi, who is trying to stay away from the party, with any positional responsibility in the party. As a result, leader Khapangi formed the Rashtriya Janamukti Party (Fourth Congress Group) and began the exercise of opening a new party. Meanwhile, he fell unconscious after the accident. While he was unconscious, his associates started the "Liberal Democratic Party - Nepal" by keeping him as the president. The party participated in the second Constituent Assembly election of 2070 and got 3,721 votes.
When he was the general secretary, Rashtriya Janamukti Party got 34 thousand 509 votes in 2048, 79 thousand 996 votes in 2051 and 94 thousand 860 votes in 2056 general elections. Khapangi came in third place after contesting parliamentary elections from Sunsari-1 in 2051 and Palpa-1 in 2056 from Rashtriya Janamukti Party, where proportional representation, federalism, and secularism were the main issues based on ethnic population in every body of the state.
Born in Ramnagar, Mahottari, Khapangi became the principal of Gauri Shankar High School in Ramechhap after completing his master's degree in education. Once he was an employee of Janakpur's tobacco development company and after he was attracted towards communist politics, Rashtriya Panchayat member Prithvimansingh Bhandari (Rashtriya Madhesh Samajwadi Party) chairman Sharatsingh Bhandari's father told the then Minister of Industry and Commerce Navraj Subedi that Khapangi had been made a teacher and sent to Ramechhap.
After the political change in 2046, Khapangi became the founder general secretary of Rashtriya Janamukti Party, which was chaired by MS Thapa. Thapa, who was a member of the Politbureau of the then Nepal Communist Party Pushpalal group, seems to have formed Rashtriya Janamukti Party without seeing the possibility of ethnic liberation from communist politics. However, he prefers to call Khapangi a social leader rather than a political one.
Interestingly, although Rashtriya Janamukti Party has been advocating federalism since its inception, Khapangi did not consider federalism as a way of ethnic liberation. He used to say, "Federalism is not for ethnic liberation but for development."
CPN-Maoist Center leader Gopal Kirati, who is also a founding central member of Rashtriya Janamukti Party, decided to form the Kirati Workers' Party after he did not agree with the party on the issue of armed war for republicanism and ethnic liberation. Later he became active in the Maoist movement.
But after the end of the war, the identity of main agenda came to a Maoist status, and the Kiranti came to separate. The issue raised by the Rashtriya Janamukti Party, the Maoists did not only make a way to come to power by conducting a 10-year people's war, Maoists played an even bigger role in overshadowing the issue of identity with the sacrifice of tribal tribes to come to power.
Spreading ethnic consciousness among tribals is considered to be the most important role of Khapangi. However, there was no shortage of those who saw it as an expression of anti-brahmin hatred.
However, MS Thapa, who is also a former assembly man and labor minister, recalls that Khapangi played an important role in confirming that the rights of oppressed communities can be established through peaceful means. "If such trust could not be given, more tribal would have resorted to Maoist violence", and the caste question would have been overshadowed.
- Writer Sinjali Magar is a journalist and student of political science.
