Sushil Koirala

According to an official website of the Nepal government, there was no property in the name of Sushil Koirala. He himself declared his three mobile phones to be his assets.

He was fondly called 'Sushil daa'.

He was born on August 12, 1939 in the city of Biratnagar, Nepal to Bodh Prasad Koirala and Kuminidi Koirala as one of their six sons among nine children.

He was a descendant of the famous Koirala family of Nepal. Three of his cousins namely Girija Prasad Koirala, Bishweshwar Prasad Koirala and Matrika Prasad Koirala too served as Prime Minister of Nepal at different points of time.

Although Sushil Koirala had always maintained to have had an informal education, one of his sister-in-laws has informed that he attended a college in India from where he did his I.Com.

He was motivated by the social and democratic principles of the ‘Nepali Congress’ that led him to join politics in his teens in 1954. All his three cousins namely Girija Prasad Koirala, Bishweshwar Prasad Koirala and Matrika Prasad Koirala remained members of the ‘Nepali Congress’ party holding high ranks in the party.

After joining the party he got actively involved in the party’s objective of carrying out democratic elections in Nepal. In 1959, the first ever democratic election was held in Nepal that saw his cousin Bishweshwar Prasad Koirala becoming the Prime Minister.

However, King Mahendra planned and executed a coup in December 1960 and expelled Bishweshwar Prasad Koirala. This incident resulted in exile of several members of the ‘Nepali Congress’ in India including Sushil Koirala.

He became actively involved in the resistance movement against the government of the King during the 60s and 70s. During his exile in India that lasted sixteen years, he began editing the party’s periodical, ‘Tarun’, in Varanasi.

In 1973, he was involved in hijacking of an aeroplane headed to India from Nepal. Although the operation fetched funds for the ‘Nepali Congress’, Sushil Koirala was incarcerated and he eventually spent three years in Indian jails.