KATHMANDU, DECEMBER 25

Chairperson of CPN-Maoist Centre Pushpa Kamal Dahal has said CPN-UML Chair KP Sharma Oli is avoiding dialogue, but other political leaders are willing to hold talks with him even reaching his personal residence in Balkot.

Dahal said this during an interaction with media editors on the eve of the first national conference of his party today. The UML failed to turn up in the all-party meeting called by the government on a pressing issue, he reminded.

'The prime minister called the all-party meeting but the leader of the major opposition ignored it. So, I told the PM to go to Oli's residence at Balkot and urge him not to continue with the Parliament impasse. There are other issues to sort out too.'

Maoist Centre Chairperson Dahal asserted that Oli wanted Parliament to be dissolved for the third time, but this would be thwarted.

'We revoked Oli's first move after a street struggle and the second move from the court,' he added.

According to him, change loving forces should unite to save the achievements made so far. The alliance partners, Maoist Centre, CPN (Unified Socialist) and Janata Samajbadi Party-Nepal are for forging alliance with like-minded parties in the coming elections.

The chairperson said, 'Sooner or later, Maoist Centre and CPN (Unified Socialist) will unite. We had not split in the past either.'

At the same programme, Chairperson Dahal also made it clear that the Maoist Centre was not against taking any assistance from donor countries. The taskforce formed by the ruling alliance has begun studying the points of the MCC agreement about which the people have shown concern.

'Maoists are not against MCC, but people want discussion on it. So, the disputed points could be discussed and amended to move forward,' he said, adding that a decision would be taken on the basis of the report of the taskforce.

He reminded that Nepal had been receiving assistance provided by the donor countries and agencies for long.

However, the questions raised about MCC should be addressed, Dahal underscored.

The taskforce led by senior leader of CPN (Unified Socialist) Jhalanath Khanal has for its members - Narayan Kaji Shrestha of the CPN-MC and Minister of Communications and Information Technology Gyanendra Bahadur Karki.

A version of this article appears in the print on December 26, 2021, of The Himalayan Times.