Former Speaker Dhungana cremated with state honours
Kathmandu / Nov. 18: Former Speaker Daman Nath Dungana has been cremated with state honours at Arya Ghat in Pashupatinath.
On the occasion, a squad of the Nepali Army offered a sorrowful farewell salute of 17 cannons. Dhungana’s sons lit the funeral pyre.
Speaker Dev Raj Ghimire, Chairman of National Assembly Narayan Prasad Dahal, Chief Justice Prakash Man Singh Raut, Deputy Speaker Indira Rana, former PM and NC president Sher Bahadur Deuba, Deputy Prime Ministers, Ministers, leaders and activists of different political parties, members of the parliament, professionals and common people reached the Arya Ghat to pay last respects to Dhungana.
Throughout his life, Dhungana maintained his distinct identity in Nepal’s political movements. Despite being affiliated to the Nepali Congress for a long time, he didn’t confine himself within the party’s domain. He earned immense respect from other political parties and communities fighting for their rights and identity.
He joined politics as a student activist in the 1960s against the partyless Panchayat system and later established himself as an advocate, human rights activist, civil society leader, and politician. He became general secretary of the Nepal Bar Association in 1971. Dhungana was also a founder executive member of Amnesty International. In 1990 he served as a member of the Constitution Recommendation Commission that drafted Nepal’s constitution.
He is respected by leaders from across the party for his exemplary role as Speaker for three years at the time when Nepali politicians and political parties were inexperienced about parliamentary practices.
He was also highly respected for the role he played as a civil society leader to mediate between mainstream political parties and the erstwhile rebel Maoists. He was one of the facilitators who worked to bring the then ruling parties and the then underground Maoist leaders together and sign the Comprehensive Peace Accord in 2006 that ended the decade-long Maoist insurgency in the country.