Kathmandu, September 5

The Ramchandra Paudel-led faction of the Nepali Congress today held a virtual meeting to devise strategies to challenge party President Sher Bahadur Deuba’s ‘interference in distribution of active membership and appointment of loyalists to the party’s departments to shore up support in his favour ahead of the 14th National Convention of the party.

Deuba is preparing to contest the party’s presidency again.

A leader close to Paudel said on condition of anonymity that they discussed options on how they should pile pressure on Deuba to force him to rescind the recent appointments Deuba made in several of the party’s departments.

The leader said the Paudel faction’s pressure tactics would aim at ensuring that the party’s National Convention was held on time.

The leader said the Deuba faction was trying to unfairly distribute the party’s active membership and it had halted distribution of active membership in eight districts of Province 2.

He said they discussed their pressure tactics against the Deuba faction and if Deuba did not address their concerns, they would stage sit-in, relay hunger strike and hold mass meetings at district and regional levels to make party cadres aware of the high-handedness of the establishment faction.

Another NC leader said on condition of anonymity that Deuba and NC Vice-president Bimalendra Nidhi were unfairly appointing new entrants to high party positions to distribute active membership, which would ultimately ruin the party.

The leader said Deuba’s faction was indulging in unfair practices not in one or two districts but many districts and that was the reason the Paudel faction wanted to protest against the establishment faction.

The leader said that Deuba was making appointments in the party’s departments after four-and-ahalf years, when the regular tenure of the party leadership had already ended and his acts were against the party’s rules and norms.

“We are committed to democracy and rule of law, but in our own party there is no democracy and rule of law,” the leader added. He said conventions of the sister wings of the party had not been held even after six years and the party leadership was to be blamed for this.

Paudel faction leaders said that they would hold another meeting in a couple of day and decide how to proceed further against the unfair decisions of the establishment faction.

The NC has decided to hold its National Convention from February 19 to 22 in Kathmandu.

A version of this article appears in e-paper on September 6, 2020, of The Himalayan Times.