Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Kamal Thapa has said that he will issue a formal rebuttal to the statement delivered by India’s External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj in the Indian parliament.

Expressing his reservations over some of the content of Swaraj’s statement delivered on Thursday, Thapa said he would address the Legislature-Parliament at the earliest outlining the government’s position on the issues raised by the Indian minister.

Though Thapa did not go into the specifics, he told the Post in an interview that the Indian statement perpetuated some ‘false notions’ about Nepal’s constitution and some of the issues raised in the Indian upper house could be easily interpreted as amounting to ‘interference’ in Nepal’s internal affairs.

“There are many issues, including false claims about the constitution, and comments on our internal issues. If I get time tomorrow in Parliament, I will deliver a formal view of the government on the statement,” Thapa said.

“First, it [Swaraj’s statement] doesn’t have an accurate reflection of the ongoing situation. Second, the issue raised in the statement gives an impression of interference in our internal affairs.”

Indian Minister Swaraj had strongly defended Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Nepal policy in the Indian parliament. Speaking in Rajya Sabha, she had said the problem in Nepal surfaced post-constitution promulgation after Nepal’s leaders failed to heed India’s advice.

Recounting Modi’s two visits to Nepal and her own last year, Swaraj had pointed to his advice to Nepal’s leaders to “work with a ‘rishi-man’ (mindset of a sage) to frame a constitution based on ‘sahmat’ (consensus) rather than ‘bahumat’ (majority).”

Swaraj had also claimed that the United States, United Kingdom, European Union and the United Nations have taken positions similar to India’s. Crucially, she had noted the failure of the government led by Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli to push through with the constitutional amendments registered by the Sushil Koirala government. She blamed problems on the Nepali side of the border for the cross-border trade restrictions.