India to pull out Sood: report

REPUBLICA

KATHMANDU, Dec 9: Indian Ambassador to Nepal Rakesh Sood is likely to be pulled out after a controversy-ridden and rather unedifying tenure, according to media reports.

According to The Telegraph of India, he is likely to be replaced by Jayant Prasad, currently special secretary in the ministry of external affairs.

"Sood assumed charge at a critical stage in Nepali transition — on the eve of the Maoist ascent to power — but quickly gained a reputation for his blunt style of functioning; critics, Nepali Maoists to begin with, called his manner brash and arrogant," the report states.

“He is a viceroy-style interventionist with little regard for diplomatic norms, he often behaves as if Nepal were his protectorate,” the newspaper quoted Maoist vice-chairman Mohan Baidya as saying during the raging row over the Nepal Army chief which eventually led to Maoist chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal’s premature resignation as Prime Minister.

The newspaper also quoted a senior Nepali Congress without naming him as saying: “Sood made his intentions clear early, he had no regard for propriety. He met our Prime Minister even before he had presented his credentials. He talks down to Nepalis and that is hurting India’s image as well.”

“Of course, he is pursuing India’s interests in Nepal, but he comes across as a brow-beater and that harms rather than helps India’s case in Nepal,” a senior Indian diplomat told the newspaper. “His tenure has coincided with heightened criticism of India in Nepal, not only among politicians but on the street.”

The decision to replace him, the newspaper claimed, has much to do with New Delhi’s desire to re-calibrate ties with Nepal, especially with the Maoists.

Prasad, the likely successor, is, like Sood, a former ambassador to Afghanistan. But he may bring to the job a more amenable history. His father and historian Bimal Prasad was sent as ambassador to Nepal when Chandra Shekhar became Prime Minister in 1990 and Nepalis have good memories of his tenure.

"Many find it not strange that he is the first Indian ambassador to Nepal to have had his effigies burnt on the streets; last month, during a trip to northern Nepal, he also became the target of a shoe flung in his face. It missed, but it described the low trajectory of Sood’s image in the country," the newspaper added.

The newspaper also reported that a few months ago, Sood prevailed upon Indian corporate interests to stop advertising in Kantipur, Nepal’s largest media group, because its journalism had displeased him.

Sood was also backing a rather unsavory Indian bid to grab the contract for machine-readable passport technology, for which Nepal had floated an international tender. The Indian quotation, it is learnt, was higher than several Nepal had received but Sood still wanted the job for India. He went so far as to put the Indian demand in writing to foreign minister Sujata Koirala; the letter was later leaked to the Nepali media, to some embarrassment for New Delhi.