Kathmandu, January 19

The nine-member task force of Nepal Communist party (NCP) has failed to prepare a roadmap for unification of the party’s lower committees due to conflicting factional interests and ‘non-cooperation’ from the two chairpersons of the party.

According to an NCP Secretariat member, task force members have blamed the party’s co-chairs KP Sharma Oli and Pushpa Kamal Dahal for failure to prepare the roadmap. The task force was to prepare the roadmap by January 10, but failed to do so.

The party Secretariat will step in to prepare the unification roadmap, a senior leader told THT. But even the Secretariat is likely to take up the issue only after January 26 when Prime Minister Oli returns from Switzerland. PM Oli is leaving for Switzerland tomorrow to attend the World Economic Forum summit in Davos. The other Chairperson Dahal is also planning to go abroad for his wife’s treatment.

“The task force is divided on the issue of reshuffling provincial committees as demanded by the Madhav Kumar Nepal-led faction. The task force is also divided on whether or not members should be added to the provincial committees; and if yes, how many,” the Secretariat member informed. According to him, the party Secretariat has asked the task force to submit its report even if it is incomplete, so that the Secretariat can finalise the issue before presenting it to the Standing Committee.

A Secretariat member told THT the task force members said co-chairs Oli and Dahal did not help them finalise the roadmap. Without Oli and Dahal’s guideline, the task force could not make recommendations.

“The top leadership, including the party chairs, failed to create conducive environment for the task force to finalise its work,” another Secretariat member said. According to him, the two chairs were reluctant to help the task force mainly because they wanted to call the shots on the unification issue. “They want to give the impression that they are allowing the relevant panels to discuss issues, but in reality, they call the shots,” he added.

An NCP source said it was a method of grabbing power rather than sharing it with the party committees.

“Oli did not want to form the task force in the first place, but agreed to do so only after other leaders, including Dahal and Nepal, pressed him,” sources said.

The Nepal faction opposed induction of  National Assembly member KomalOli into a provincial committee saying since she came from a non-communist background she should not be included in the provincial committee without serving the party for at least six years.

Sources said  the Nepal faction wanted to include its loyalists in provincial committees invoking the party statute’s provision that allowed elected committees to nominate 10 per cent members in each committee of the party.NC slams ‘sham agreement’