(Commentary)
From now on, the name of the last King of Nepal, Gyanmendra Bir Vikram Shah Dev, will not have five "shri"s before it. Nor will be described as Shri Paanch (Shri,Shri,Shri,Shri,Shri) Gyanendra but just as Shri Gyanendra Shah. He will no longer occupy the Narayanhiti Palace re-done by a Calcutta firm in the 1960s with two soaring towers becoming its trade mark. He has been asked to move out and dismantle the Palace Secretariat within the next fifteen days in order that this building, named after a fountain ("hity") with the name of God Narayana, can become a national museum.

May 28 will henceforth become the January 26 of Nepal, the Republic Day, and will be celebrated as such every year. The actual official date according to the Nepali solar Vikrami era will be Jyestha 15 which may see changes in the Gregorian calendar date of May 28, in some years.

However, the mandate of the people to abandon a monarchy and embrace a republican form of Government was so overwhelming both during the elections for the Constituent Assembly on April 10 and yesterday, May 28, all over the country of more than two crores of people that any thought of retaining the institution of monarchy would have been foolhardy. Prithvi Narayan Shah dynasty will end a few days less than 239 years .The intrepid Rajput head of a principality called Gorkha ( hence of the name of the hill people known for their bravery and loyalty) had occupied the Kanthmandu kingdom on September 13 (26 according to some historians). 1769 and had expanded his territory till he lived upto to 1775, his descendants later extending the boundary of his empire upto the river Satluj in the west and the Teesta in the west).

The long-awaited first meeting of the Constituent Assembly, which began about 9.15 in the evening instead of the scheduled eleven in the morning, adopted a resolution moved by Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala (but read by Home Minister Ramchandra Poudyal) at a little after 11 p.m declaring Nepal as a Republic. Voting for this resolution was by Division, since it was treated as a bill to amend the Constitution (the procedure followed by the Indian Parliament) and since no electronic gadgets were available at the auditorium called the Birendra International Convention Centre, every member had to vote on paper. That was why it took such a long time for the Pro-tem Speaker Kulbahadur Gurung to declare the result, 560 for and just four against. The negative votes were cast by the four members of the Rashtriya Prajatantra Party-Nepal led by Mr.Kamal Thapa, a pro-Royalist party .The party headed by Pashupati Shumshere Rana, a grandson of the last Rana Prime Minister Mohan Shumshere Jung Bahadur Rana, called the Rasahtriya Prajatantra Party, voted for the republican system.

But as soon as the result was declared, the cheering by Members, raising both their hands, would not stop. Their enthusiasm was reciprocated by the thousands of people outside the Centre who had been waiting, dancing and singing not only in Kathmandu but all over Nepal. One bomb blast a little distance away from the venue did not affect the celebrations at all.

For those in India struggling for a thirty three per cent reservation for women in the Lok Sabha and the Vidha Sabhas, it would be interesting to note than about 180 -women out of the 564 members in the House were women, from the Terai region to the mountainous areas. This was possible because it was made mandatory for all political parties to nominate at least 30 per cent of the total seats to be contested by them under the proportional representation system covering 335 out of the 601 seats of the Constituent Assembly.

The meeting began with paying homage to all those who had sacrificed their lives for attaining the goal of a republic system for Nepal. The first and the only message of congratulatory message from abroad was that from Mr. Somnath Chatterjee, Speaker of the Lok Sabha.

The reason why the timing of the first meeting was shifted from 11 in the morning to three in the afternoon to six in the evening and ultimately about 9.15 in the evening was the hard bargaining the non-Maoist parties in general fought for inclusion of a President and a Vice President in the Government It was also stated that the President would defend the Constitution. This would require amendment of the Interim Constitution which the Nepali Congress and the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist were demanding from the very beginning. The issue is likely to come up at the next meeting of the Constituent Assembly, to be held from June 6. However, there was no official declaration of this decision, Leaders of political parties who attended the nearly 10 hour long negotiations at the residence of the Prime Minister, freely told the media before the meeting began.

The Prime Minister, in his short speech, invited the Communist party of Nepal (Maoists)-the largest party in the House with 220 members- to form the next government.

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