• Twenty Standing Committee members have sought SC meet, but Sectt fails to fix date for  the same

Kathmandu, April 29

A meeting of the ruling Nepal Communist Party (NCP)’s Secretariat today failed to agree on a date for calling the Standing Committee meeting to put pressure on Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli to resign.

Twenty members of the Standing Committee close to party Co-chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal and senior leader Madhav Kumar Nepal have sought a meeting of the party’s Standing Committee pronto.

Party Spokesperson Narayan Kaji Shrestha told THT that the meeting failed to fix a date for Standing Committee meeting. “We have decided to hold the next Secretariat meeting on May 2. We’ll be discussing Standing Committee issues on May 2,” Shrestha said. He said all nine office bearers of the Secretariat put forth their views in today’s meeting.

When asked if any Secretariat member sought the PM’s resignation in today’s meeting, a member close to Dahal said, “Majority members of the Standing Committee want the PM to resign.”

Rift between Oli and leaders close to Dahal and Nepal has widened after the PM brought two controversial ordinances -- one to facilitate split in parties and the other to allow the Constitutional Council to take decisions on the basis of majority. The Dahal and Nepal factions have accused the PM of taking unilateral decisions without following the party’s directives.

Oli has fallen into minority in the Secretariat, Standing Committee and Central Committee. He is trying hard to muster enough support in the Parliamentary Party to stay on as the PM. The ruling NCP has 174 members in the House of Representatives and the PM needs to have the backing of at least 88 members in the PP to continue to hold the PM’s post.

The PM’s faction today started collecting signatures of lawmakers to prove majority in the Parliamentary Party. Both sides are trying to pull lawmakers of the rival faction into their camp. Oli succeeded in bringing Minister of Industry, Commerce and Supplies Lekhraj Bhatta into his camp. Bhatta, a former Maoist leader, was with Dahal not long ago.

Ruling party member of the House of Representatives Til Bahadur Mahat told THT that he and some other NCP lawmakers met the prime minister today at his official residence and signed a document expressing their support to Oli.

“As the prime minister was appointed for a period of five years, he should be allowed to complete his tenure. We went to the PM to express our support,” Mahat added. More than 92 lawmakers from both the houses – the HoR and the National Assembly -- have voluntarily signed the solidarity book at the PM’s residence.

Another ruling party lawmaker, Khagaraj Adhikari, told THT that the PM should be allowed to rule for a full five-year term, adding that if he was removed, it could invite political instability. He said he had not been asked to sign the document expressing his support to the PM yet, but if the PM asked him to do so, he would sign the document without any hesitation.

NCP leader Beduram Bhusal, who is close to Madhav Kumar Nepal, said the signature campaign would not help the PM as the party’s bodies could always take a decision to censure him.

Meanwhile, the Dahal and Nepal factions have asked lawmakers on their side to come to Kathmandu. In fact, most of them have already arrived in the capital.

A version of this article appears in e-paper on April 30, 2020, of The Himalayan Times.