Kathmandu, August 15

Leaders from the Madhav Kumar Nepal-led faction of the CPN UML today blamed party Chairman KP Sharma Oli’s self-centred behaviour for the break-up of partnership with the CPN-Maoist Centre.

Speaking at today’s Standing Committee meeting held at the party headquarters in Dhumbarahi, Nepal, according to an SC member, said that Oli could have saved the coalition even by tendering his resignation from the prime minister’s position.

“It is due to the party chairman’s weakness that the coalition could not be saved. He also ran the government from a certain faction of the party,” senior leader and former PM Nepal told the meeting, according to party sources.

Leaders from the Nepal faction, including Vice-chairpersons Yuvraj Gyanwali and Astalaxmi Shakya and SC member Surendra Pande blamed Oli’s unilateral, self-centred decisions.

They criticised Oli for not being able to bring election related laws to implement the government’s work plan of holding the three levels of elections. The leaders urged Oli to run the party abiding by the party’s principle and statute and to organise the party in such a way that it could unite for the elections, said party sources.

“This is the first time the party’s norms have been broken. If the party is to be run in a systematic way, the trend of taking decisions in an individualistic manner should be stopped,” SC member Pande told the meeting, according to sources. Although the previous government talked about prosperity, it could not give preference to implementation of the new constitution, he told the meeting.

Some other leaders including Bhim Rawal and Pradip Gyanwali, however, said that there were some extraneous reasons in the break-up of the coalition and not Oli, according to sources.

The meeting will resume at 11:00am tomorrow, said party secretary Yogesh Bhattarai in a statement.