The party’s problems are rooted in leaders who have already led the party and the government

KATHMANDU, NOVEMBER 8

A day after five members of the ruling Nepal Communist Party (NCP) Secretariat upped the ante against Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli by making a formal demand for calling party Secretariat meeting, the PM called senior leader Madhav Kumar Nepal at his residence in Baluwatar to discuss political crisis in the party.

Co-chair of the NCP Pushpa Kamal Dahal had recently told party leaders that the PM, who has fallen into minority in the NCP Secretariat, Standing Committee and Central Committee, was not ready to call party bodies’ meetings and would rather split the party ‘on friendly terms’.

Surendra Prasad Pandey, who accompanied Nepal in the meeting with the PM today, told THT that the PM sought Nepal’s support to resolve the crisis in the party, but Nepal told Oli that he should come up with a concrete plan. Nepal also asked the PM to call the Secretariat meeting soon.

A source close to Oli told THT that in the three-hour meeting with Nepal, the PM said he had publicly announced that he would not seek to become the PM or NCP chair again after the current tenure and all party leaders who were around 70 years of age and had already become the party chief or the prime minister should also pledge to do the same to pave the way for young leaders of the party to take party leadership. The party’s problems are rooted in leaders who have already led the party and the government, the PM told Nepal.

The rival faction of the ruling party led by Dahal has accused the PM of acting unilaterally, reshuffling the federal Cabinet without consulting other leaders of the party, defying party decisions and engineering a no-trust motion against Karnali Chief Minister Mahendra Bahadur Shahi.

NCP leader Bhim Bahadur Rawal and Raghuji Panta also accompanied Nepal when he went to meet the PM. Rawal said both sides exchanged their views on the current crisis, but did not reach any conclusion. Asked if the PM’s meeting with Nepal was an attempt to rally the support of leaders who were formerly associated with the CPN-UML, Rawal said no.

Yesterday, Deputy Prime Minister Ishwar Pokharel, who is close to Oli, had held a meeting with NCP Kathmandu chapter leaders who were formerly associated with the CPN-UML. Recently, Oli had chaired a virtual meeting with the party’s Province 1 chapter leaders and told them to start a debate in favour of people’s multi-party democracy, championed by the erstwhile UML.

NCP lawmaker Beduram Bhusal, who is close to Nepal, said Oli had been trying to portray the current crisis as merely a power tussle between him and Dahal. “Current issues concern everybody in the party. Nepal has been saying that the party should be run on the basis of party norms and statute. No leader of the party is above party norms and rules and Nepal continues to stick to what he has been saying all these months,” he said.

Nepal conveyed the same message to the PM today.

Nepal was among the five Secretariat members — others being Dahal, Jhalanath Khanal, Bamdev Gautam and Narayan Kaji Shrestha — who wrote a letter to Oli yesterday seeking his consent to call a Secretariat meeting to discuss the COVID-19 crisis and implementation of the party’s Standing Committee decisions.

Featured image: File photo

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