Nepal king to lose cooks, waiters and servants http://in.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2007-03-15T234657Z_01_NOOTR_RTRJONC_0_India-291108-1.xml
Thu Mar 15, 2007
By Gopal Sharma
KATHMANDU (Reuters) - Nepal's government will withdraw hundreds of King Gyanendra's aides including cooks, waiters, clerks and the queen's beauticians from the palace, a minister said on Thursday.
The decision is a further blow to King Gyanendra, who has largely been confined to his palace since 2006 when he bowed to weeks of pro-democracy protests and handed power back to political parties a year after he sacked the government.
Some 774 staff have been removed and includes servants used to pluck flowers for prayers conducted by the king and his family members, Queen Komal's hairdressers and palace photographers apart from clerks, secretaries and accountants.
After the king relinquished power, Nepal's new multi-party government moved swiftly to strip him of most of his powers including control over the powerful army.
He has also been told to pay taxes.
"All those who are above the retirement age of 58 years, but are still working in the palace, will be compulsorily retired," Junior Minister for General Administration Dharmanath Prasad Shah said after a cabinet meeting. Others, he said, will be asked to report to the government.
The government also plans to nationalise property accumulated by King Gyanendra since he ascended the throne in 2001, Shah said.
Since the king gave up power, there has been a groundswell of demand for abolishing the monarchy and turning Nepal into a republic.
This week, Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala, who had been supporting a ceremonial role for the king in the hugely religious nation, asked King Gyanendra to abdicate, saying the monarch and Crown Prince Paras had lost their reputation.
But analysts said the veteran politician had not abandoned his stance on keeping the monarchy in some forms.
"On the surface it looks like it is a pro-republican statement but in reality it is the prime minister's last ditch attempt to save the monarchy from extinction," said Kunda Dixit, editor of the weekly Nepali Times. "Koirala reasons that the only way the monarchy could be preserved now is by skipping the two generations and making Gyanendra's four-year-old grandson the king," Dixit said.
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