Kathmandu, May 10

The unofficial gathering of General Secretary Ram Bahadur Thapa-led faction of the CPN-Revolutionary Maoist today decided to wait for the central committee meeting called by Chairman Mohan Baidhya to split the party in favour of unity among Maoist parties.

“Actually we don’t want to split the party and therefore we will wait till May 16 so that the Baidhya faction will be held responsible for the split,” said CPN-RM leader Lekhnath Neupane who is close to Thapa.

He said 108 out of the 199-member central committee were present during today’s meeting, which indicates they have support from majority of the central committee.

Neupane also said that there would be a last ditch effort to convince Baidhya and his supporters that include Vice-chairman C P Gajurel and Pari Thapa, who recently merged his party.

After Chairman Baidhya postponed the central committee meeting for one month following the dispute over unification with Maoist parties, General Secretary Thapa himself had called the central committee meeting for today, but the meeting turned into an informal gathering that decided to make a last ditch effort to convince Baidhya and his followers.

Party spokesperson Pampha Bhusal said General Secretary Thapa and Dev Gurung are holding dialogue with Chairman Baidhya this evening and things will be clear within a day or two. Neupane said Baidhya refused to accept the 11-point issues that he himself had prepared for unification with Unified CPN-Maoist.

Since all the ideological and political issues were sorted out between the parties to be unified majority of CPN-RM, Matrika Yadav-led CPN-Maoist, Mani Thapa led Revolutionary Communist Party and a number of central committee members of Netra Bikram Chand-led CPN Maoist as soon as the issues of CPN-RM is finalised, the issues of the organizational setting will be discussed.

All the parties including UCPN-M have also agreed to change the name of the party. Following unification, the UCPN-M will no more exist with its current name.