Nepal Vice President defends his swearing in Hindi

Kathmandu, July 26 : Nepal Vice President Parmananda Jha has defended himself for taking oath in Hindi during the swearing in ceremony.

"Hindi is also the mother-tongue of some community in Nepal," Nepalnews quoted Jha, as saying.

"As per the census, there are around 200,000 people whose mother-tongue is Hindi," he said.

He also rejected accusations that using Hindi language would, in any way, undermine nationality and integrity.

Although he himself is a native Maithili speaker, he Jha said he chose to take oath in Hindi because it was a common language understood by Maithili, Bhojpuri, Awadhi and other lingual groups of Madhes region.

Responding to the filing of a writ petition in the Supreme Court against his swearing in Hindi, he said he would abide by the court decision.

Jha also claimed that his taking of oath in Hindi had not breached the interim constitution.

Earlier, CPN-Maoist spokesperson Krishna Bahadur Mahara said that Jha's swearing-in in Hindi is against the interim constitution. He also informed that the Maoists would protest against this incident.

On Wednesday, President Dr Ram Baran Yadav, clad in the Nepal costume, had taken the oath of office and secrecy in Nepali. However, when he administered the oath of office to Vice President Jha, who was clad in a dress that many identify with Indian parliamentarians, the latter preferred to take it in Hindi.

According to an independent statistics, only 0.05 per cent of people living in Terai speak Hindi. The majority of the people there speak Bhojpuri, Maithali, Avadhi and other local dialects.

ANI