New Delhi, May 21: The Royal Nepal Army’s decision to announce India’s alleged links with Maoists possibly stems from King Gyanendra’s anger with Delhi for backing political parties in their campaign for democracy.

Hours before the army released the audio tape yesterday on which Maoist leader Prachanda was allegedly speaking about an invitation for talks from Delhi, the Indian ambassador was handed a demarche (formal protest) over what Kathmandu calls an attempt to “interfere in Nepal’s internal affairs”.

Ambassador Shiv Shankar Mukherjee had gone to the Nepalese foreign office to discuss “multilateral issues” with foreign secretary Madhu Raman Acharya when he was handed the demarche.

Later, the army released the audio tape at its headquarters. This followed a report in Gulf News that some key Maoist leaders, including Baburam Bhattarai, held meetings with CPI leader A.B. Bardhan and his CPM counterpart Prakash Karat recently.

India has dismissed the charge as “baseless”. It has also wondered why the Nepalese army made the tape public without first bringing it to India’s notice.

Officials pointed out that the audio played by the army was part of an old tape it had earlier used to expose a rift in the Maoist leadership. “This clearly shows they had the tape for some time. Why did they not share its content with us?” a senior Indian official asked.

Questions are also being raised about how the army is sure the voice on the tape is Prachanda’s since the Maoist leader is a shadowy character and few have met him or heard him speak.

But Delhi is more concerned about Nepal’s motive behind releasing the audio than whether the tape is genuine or not. It feels the army, prompted by the king, was “trying to play hardball” since Kathmandu is disappointed with Delhi over arms supply as well as its encouragement of the political parties’ campaign for democracy.

On May 16, India issued a statement welcoming the coming together of the seven big parties in Nepal and said the common agenda they had agreed upon could form a “good basis” for talks with the king to find a solution to the political crisis. On February 1, Gyanendra had dismissed the government and seized power.

Neither the king nor his close aides took the Indian statement lightly. The palace, unhappy with critical reports that have appeared in the Indian media in the past few weeks, feels these reflect the view of the government.