The Tanakpur Dam agreement with India in November 2048 was such a phenomenon in Nepali politics, the effect of which was not only within the then government, but it also brought division in the Congress party.

The Congress was the first elected government after the Jan Andolan of 2046. Parliamentary Party leader Girija Prasad Koirala became the Prime Minister on 13th May 2048. Six months after becoming the Prime Minister, i.e. on November 19, Koirala left for a visit to India. And returned with an agreement with India regarding the Tanakpur Dam. After he returned, the left-wing parties, including the then main opposition party UML, started protesting saying that the treaty was against the national interest .

Koirala said that there is an agreement with India regarding the Tanakpur Dam but no treaty. Prime Minister Koirala made an agreement or the issue of treaty has reached the court . On 30th of November 2049, the Supreme Court held that the Tanakpur Treaty was the same. According to Article 26 of the Constitution of 2047, the Supreme Court ruled that the agreement with India should be passed by a two-thirds majority of the Parliament. Then political confrontation started. 

2048 The then Prime Minister of Nepal Girija Prasad Koirala with the then Indian Foreign Minister Madhav Singh Solanki and Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao during his visit to India in November 2048. Photo: GP Koirala Foundation

Without the support of the Left parties including the UML, the agreement was not likely to be passed . Koirala also tried to pass the agreement by changing the definition of the Treaty Act. But the UML and the then United People's Front protested. Prime Minister Koirala formed an 11-member evaluation committee on Tanakpur agreement under the coordination of Lokraj Baral on 15th January 2049, which submitted a report on Tanakpur to the government on 3rd February. Making the issue of Tanakpur the main issue of opposition to the government, the left-wing parties including the UML, which are heating up the house and the streets, are demanding that Koirala resign from the post of Prime Minister. 

In this background, the then president of Congress, Krishna Prasad Bhattarai, said that Tanakpur should not be looked at in a negative light at an event in Kathmandu on February 6, 2049. Inaugurating the seminar on Tanakpur and its raised questions and possibilities, Bhattarai gave a speech of the intention to bring the opposition parties to a consensus and reach two-thirds. He reminded in the program that the court asked Tanakpur to be passed by two-thirds of both houses.