Kathmandu, February 13 CPN-UML Chairman KP Sharma Oli and CPN-Maoist Centre Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal have agreed that the unified party’s central committee will have less than 100 members. Since UML central committee has 200 members and that of the CPN-MC 4,000, Oli and Dahal are likely to face a mammoth task managing their party leaders, as most of them will not make it to the central committee of the unified party. During a one-on-one meeting held in Lalitpur today, the two leaders also reached understanding on forming task forces to draft the unified party’s statute and political document and finalising an interim organisational structure until the party’s general convention. According to Dahal’s Private Secretary Jokha Bahadur Mahara, a meeting of the Party Unification Coordination Committee slated for tomorrow might form the task forces as per the instructions of Oli and Dahal. Mahara told THT that unification talks would conclude before the formation of the new government. Generally, a communist party’s politburo has one-third the strength of its central committee and the standing committee’s strength is one-third of the politburo. In case the central committee of the unified party has 99 members, its politburo will not have more than 33 members and the standing committee 11. “The two leaders are positive about limiting the strength of the central committee to double digits,” Mahara said. The standing committee will be the top executive unit of the proposed Nepal Communist Party. Likely standing committee

• KP Sharma Oli

• Pushpa Kamal Dahal

• Madhav Kumar Nepal

• Jhalanath Khanal,

• Bamdev  Gautam

• Bhim Rawal

• Ishwar Pokhrel

• Narayan Kaji Shrestha

• Ram Bahadur Thapa

The standing committee is likely to include Oli, Madhav Kumar Nepal, Jhalanath Khanal, Bamdev Gautam, Bhim Rawal and Ishwar Pokhrel from the UML, and Dahal, Narayan Kaji Shrestha and Ram Bahadur Thapa from the CPN-MC, according to sources. However, a leader each from the two parties may be added to the standing committee to make it 11. The new addition could be either Bishnu Paudel or Ghanashyam Bhusal from the UML and Krishna Bahadur Mahara from the CPN-MC, the sources claimed. Oli and Dahal will co-chair the unified party, while the second most powerful post of general secretary will go to Pokhrel. UML Secretary Pradeep Gyawali said Oli and Dahal have decided to call a PUCC meeting tomorrow afternoon to give finishing touches to the unification process after their planned one-on-one meeting. PUCC meeting will be attended by Oli, Nepal, Khanal, Gautam and Pokhrel from the UML and Dahal, Shrestha and Thapa from the CPN-MC. “There are some issues that have to be sorted out,” Gyawali told THT. Oli and Dahal have ‘almost agreed’ to a power-sharing deal for the unification of the two parties. As per the understanding between the two leaders, they will take turns to head the government and the unified party. This means that while Oli is the prime minister Dahal will lead the unified party and they will swap their roles after two-and-a-half years. Both leaders will co-chair the party till its first general convention. The two leaders also reached an understanding that the name of the unified party will be ‘Nepal Communist Party’, and its ideology will be an amalgamation of CPN-UML’s ‘People’s Multi-party Democracy’ and the CPN-MC’s ‘Democracy in the 21st Century’.