Girija Prasad Koirala

Girija Prasad Koirala, freedom fighter, four-time prime minister and the architect of Nepal's peace process, has died at age 86.

His political career began in 1948 with the formation of Nepal Trade Union Congress.

After King Mahendra's 1960 coup, Koirala was involved in the NC's brief tryst with armed struggle against the absolute monarchy.

His organisational skills served him well as he flitted back and forth across the Nepal-India border to procure weapons.

Koirala was appointed as Prime Minister by King Birendra after Nepali Congress won the majority in Nepal's first multi-party democratic elections.

He was also considered a manipulative leader who sidelined all rivals within his party and, paradoxically, was blamed for the erosion of the gains of the 1990 Jana Andolan. Here he is seen with Nepali Congress leaders Ganesh Man Singh and Krishna Prasad Bhattarai after he dissolved the house and declared mid-term elections in 1994.

The NC was in power for ten of the twelve years between 1990 and 2002 and Koirala was prime minister for many of those years. Yet his leadership was marred by corruption scandals involving the leasing of jets by the national airline and allegations of nepotism.

Perhaps Koirala's two most notable actions were to stand up to King Gyanendra after his creeping coup in 2002. While the UML and even the Deuba faction of the NC joined the royal government after 2002, Koirala was against compromising with the king.

He was initially in favour of retaining a constitutional monarchy, and was the strongest proponent of the 'baby king' proposal to put Gyanendra's grandson Hridayendra on the throne. But by the end 2007, even this position became untenable.

The 12-point agreement with the Maoists was a path-breaking deal that paved the way for the April 2006 uprising and the brought the rebels out into the streets in peaceful protests.

After the peace process and the Maoist electoral victory of 2008, Koirala was assured by Dahal that he would be the first president of the new republic. Instead, Koirala's own colleague from the NC, Ram Baran Yadav, became president.

Never one to give up, he tried till the very end to ensure a political comeback either for himself or for his daughter, even if it meant aligning with his former arch enemies, the Maoists.

He died at the home of his daughter and deputy prime minister, Sujata Koirala. He had been suffering from severe respiratory disease for the past few years, but his condition suddenly deteriorated last Sunday.