Kathmandu, June 23 -- For years since the start of the Maoist insurgency, academic institutions became the first target of the dissenting party to pressurise the government to fulfil its interests. But after the Maoists joined peaceful politics in 2006 following the Comprehensive Peace Accord, other parties and their sister wings adopted the practice of shutting down schools and colleges to make their demands heard.

The tendency, however, waned after the second Constituency Assembly elections in 2013. And it almost stopped, with some exceptions, after the promulgation of the constitution in 2015.

But of late, the Netra Bikram Chand-led Communist Party of Nepal, an offshoot of the Maoist party that waged the decade-long insurgency, is in...