Kathmandu. Chief Minister of Lumbini Province Shankar Pokharel has stood up in defense of Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli’s covert meeting with Samant Goel, chief of the Indian  Indian foreign intelligence organization,  Research and Analysis Wing (RAW)

While Oli has been criticized by all and sundry for his rendezvous with the RAW chief, Pokharel has claimed that Goel had come as an envoy of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Oli’s engagement with the Indian intelligence chief is against Nepal’s sovereignty and foreign policy as defined by the Constitution, experts say. Pokharel, also a member of the Nepal Communist Party (NCP) Permanent Committee, has shown his dissatisfaction on the allegations made upon the prime minister.

In his Faceook wall he has written: “Is it a plan or karma that the backlash against PM Oli started as soon as the RAW chief met him as an envoy of Indian Prime Minister Modi? Let us have faith upon the actions of our prime minister and pray for an amicable solution to Nepal-India border dispute.”

The dialogue between Nepal’s prime minister and the RAW chief has been denounced within the ruling party as being against the diplomatic norms. RAW Chief Samant Goel had made a sudden visit to Kathmandu on Wednesday and held discussions with PM Oli from 9 pm till midnight .

Both governments of Nepal and  India have remained silent on the visit. Goel returned at 10 am the next day. Nothing about the purpose and the outcome of the visit has been disclosed yet.

Meanwhile, there had been reports about Goel’s meetings with other former prime ministers. Three former prime ministers, Pushpa kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’, Sher Bahadur Deuba and Madhav Kumar Nepal, have denied having met the RAW chief. The main opposition party Nepali Congress has demanded the issue of discussion to be brought to the public eye.