Kathmandu, January 1

A faction of the Nepali Congress led by senior leader Ramchandra Paudel will boycott the party’s central working committee meeting slated for tomorrow, a leader representing the camp said.

The NC has called a meeting of the CWC and office bearers tomorrow to finalise candidates for the National Assembly election slated for January 23. The meeting is also expected to discuss possible electoral alliance with other parties.

However, the Paudel camp leader said would continue to boycott any CWC meeting unless the party President Sher Bahadur Deuba mended his ways of taking unilateral decisions.

Paudel camp has been boycotting CWC meeting for the past one month over issues related to the 14th National Convention, number of party departments, constitution of Nepal Student’s Union and extension of tenure of Tarun Dal’s working committee.

The NC CWC on December 28 prepared the calendar of events for the next national convention proposing to hold it from February 19 to 22 in 2021. The meeting had decided to extend the tenure of the current leadership by one year from 3 March 2020, when the tenure of office bearers ends. The decision was taken on the basis of majority amid Paudel camp’s boycott.

The following day, the Paudel camp organised a press conference saying it would not accept the establishment faction’s decision to extend the tenure of the party’s leadership by one year.

Flanked by party General Secretary Shashank Koirala and another leader Prakash Man Singh, Paudel said while his party opposed the Nepal Communist Party (NCP)-led government’s unilateral move of making appointments in constitutional bodies on the pretext of majority, it was now witnessing a similar practice within the party as the party President Deuba had unilaterally decided to extend his tenure and prepared the calendar of events for the next national convention.