KATHMANDU, MARCH 3

The faction of the Nepal Communist Party (NCP) led by Pushpa Kamal Dahal and Madhav Kumar Nepal today upped the ante against the rival faction, taking disciplinary action against seven leaders close to Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli, including deputy parliamentary party leader Subas Chandra Nembang.

NCP Standing Committee member Bhim Bahadur Rawal said that the party's Central Committee meeting held here today decided to suspend Nembang from the Standing Committee for six months. The party body also expelled Bishal Bhattarai from the Central Committee for misleading the party's lawmakers and the public about party statute. The faction also decided to suspend Central Committee members Mahesh Basnet, Shanta Chaudhary, Surya Thapa, Prabhu Sah, and Karna Bahadur Thapa for six months for acting against the party's interests and its statute.

The Dahal-Nepal faction also directed Nembang to resign as deputy parliamentary party leader immediately. It directed Bhattarai, who was recently appointed as chief whip, to not act against the party.

Rawal said as per the NCP statute, if the party wanted to expel any lawmaker from the Parliament, then the parliamentary party must form a board and recommend action against erring lawmakers which must be endorsed by the party's Central Committee. 'We have the majority in the Central Committee and if we have to expel any lawmaker from the Parliament, we will do it,' Rawal said.

The Dahal-Nepal faction also condemned Oli for not resigning as PM after his move dissolving the House of Representatives was nullified by the Supreme Court.

It condemned the Election Commission's indecision in the NCP legitimacy row.

Rawal said that his faction would again write a letter to the EC demanding that it take immediate decision on the legitimacy row. 'Justice delayed is justice denied,' he said.

Rawal said the party urged all forces that protested against Oli's unconstitutional decision to dissolve the HoR to join hands in forming the next government.

He said his party had intensified talks with other political parties about the next government. The Central Committee entrusted the party Secretariat and the Standing Committee to decide all aspects of the formation of next government, including who should lead the government.

'We are open to the question of who should lead the next government because our first priority is to end Oli's arbitrary actions,' Rawal said when asked which party would lead the next government.

Nembang questioned the validity of the action taken against him by the Dahal-Nepal faction.

He told THT that as per the Election Commission's recent ruling, any meeting of the party could be deemed valid only when 'the first Co-chair Oli and the second Co-chair Dahal directed NCP General Secretary Bishnu Prasad Paudel to call a party body's meeting. He said he was not informed about today's CC meeting by anybody, including parliamentary party leader Oli. 'Nobody told me anything recently and I cannot believe that the party has taken disciplinary action against me,' Nembang said.

A version of this article appears in the print on March 4, 2021, of The Himalayan Times.