www.sapkotaom.blogspot.com

Bishweshwar Prasad Koirala (1914 – 1982) was the Prime Minister of Nepal from 1959 to 1960. He led the Nepali Congress, a social democratic political party.
Koirala was the first democratically elected prime minister in Nepal's history. He held the office just 18 months before being deposed and imprisoned by order of King Mahendra, an assertive absolute monarch jealous of the powers he had delegated to Koirala's government. For the rest of his life, which was spent largely in prison or exile and in steadily deteriorating health, "B. P." (as he was everywhere known) never ceased to call for the restoration of democratic freedoms in his country.
Koirala led the armed revolution of 1951 which overthrew Nepal's 104-year old Rana Regime, a narrow family-based oligarchy permitted by successive acquiescent kings to exercise all real power. The last Rana prime minister was dismissed in October 1951 when the Rana-Congress coalition cabinet (in which Koirala served for nine months as the Home minister) broke apart. Koirala then concentrated on the developing Nepali political structure: although not fully officially tolerated, political parties were increasing in importance, and the King was pushed by events to offer some concession to growing democratic aspirations. King Mahendra responded with a new constitution enabling free parliamentary elections to take place in 1959. Only a fragmented parliament was expected, but Koirala's Nepali Congress scored a landslide, taking more than two-thirds of the seats in the lower house. After several weeks of significant hesitation, Mahendra asked Koirala to form a government, which took office in May 1959.
Viewed from abroad, Koirala's debut as prime minister was a great success. He led his country's delegation to the United Nations and made carefully poised visits to China and India, then increasingly at odds over territorial disputes. Yet, he was in trouble at home almost from the beginning. His land reform measures, especially the revision of the tenancy laws so easily passed by parliament, deeply offended the landed aristocracy which had long dominated the army. His long-promised reform of the central bureaucracy outraged thousands of entrenched and powerful bureaucrats. And the King and court saw even their residual powers being eroded with amazing speed. The new government, the nation's first democratic experiment, thus managed to alienate all the traditional centers of power. King Mahendra acted quickly, brutally, and finally: on 15 December 1960, he suspended the constitution, dissolved parliament, dismissed the cabinet, imposed direct rule, and for good measure imprisoned Koirala and his closest government colleagues. Many of them were released after few months, but Koirala, though he was suffering from throat cancer, was kept imprisoned without trial until 1968, when he was finally permitted to go and live in exile in Banaras.
King Birendra, educated in England and the United States, succeeded his father in 1972, and the political climate was believed to be gradually improving. Koirala, however, was arrested immediately upon his return from exile in 1976 and charged with the capital offense of attempting armed revolution. Considerable international pressure secured his release on parole and enabled him to travel to the United States for medical treatment. He was arrested again on his return from New York in late 1977, but in March 1978 was finally cleared of all treason and sedition charges.
After returning from a further medical visit to the United States, he had a series of audiences with King Birendra, as he tried for a "national reconciliation." During the student demonstrations in 1979, he was under house arrest. However, he welcomed King Birendra's call for national referendum on the question of political system for Nepal. The referendum results were announced to be in favor of retaining the political system led by the king amid widespread charges of vote rigging whereupon Koirala demanded a boycott of the 1981 elections. Despite obviously failing health and political strength, Koirala could still draw a great popular support. He addressed one of Nepal's largest public meetings in recent years in Kathmandu's Ratna Park in January 1982. He died on July 21, 1982 in Kathmandu. An estimated half a million people attended his funeral.