KATHMANDU, MARCH 20

Thirty-eight lawmakers from the Nepal-Khanal faction, today, wrote to parliamentary party leader and Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli offering five reasons behind their decision to skip the PP meeting.

They said the parliamentary party meeting called at Baluwatar was not valid and hence they did not participate.

They said the recent nominations to the Central Committee was also illegal.

Lawmaker Jeevan Ram Shrestha and Som Prasad Pandey submitted the letter to the PM.

The rival faction stated that party activities were not being carried out as per the ninth convention of the party, and the parliamentary board was formed without approval of the Central Committee.

They also said the PP meeting should be held at Singha Durbar, not other places.

Senior leader Madhav Kumar Nepal said at a public programme that he was ready for a fresh start in the party, forgetting old rivalries if PM Oli returned to the pre-unification stage and revived all the committees that existed before the UML's unification with the CPN-MC.

Nepal said his faction was in majority in all the party bodies - office bearers group, Standing Committee, Politburo and Central Committee - but PM Oli had illegally tried to maintain his majority in the Central Committee by inducting 23 former Maoist leaders.

A version of this article appears in the print on March 21, 2021, of The Himalayan Times.