Kathmandu, July 15 (Inditop.com) Nepal’s Defence Minister Vidya Bhandari will be going to India Monday.
According to Bhandari’s secretariat, the minister, who is recuperating from blood cancer, will be undergoing a check-up at New Delhi’s Apollo Hospital after her arrival.
Bhandari, who belongs to the ruling Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist (UML), has been told that she could be needing an operation.
Depending on the result of the check-up, she would either remain in the Indian capital for a week or return immediately.
If doctors advise an operation, she would pay a second visit to New Delhi where she would have to stay for a longer period.
The defence secretariat rejected reports in a section of the Nepali media Wednesday that Bhandari was going on an official visit on the invitation of her Indian counterpart A.K. Antony.
The reports also speculated she would be broaching with the Indian authorities the subject of India resuming the lethal military assistance it had been offering in the past.
New Delhi suspended lethal military aid to Nepal’s army, given in the past on a 70 percent subsidy to combat the Maoist insurgency, in 2005 after the then king Gyanendra seized absolute power with the help of the army.
The reports said Nepal Army chief Gen. Rookmangud Katawal had met Bhandari and urged her to seek assistance from India to combat the spreading diarrhoea epidemic in western Nepal that has killed over 150 people.
Bhandari’s office, however, rejected the reports, saying her visit was purely for medical treatment.
