Kathmandu, March 23:

Former Maoist leader Rabindra Shrestha, in his first public speech after joining CPN-UML as the party’s central committee member, today urged the Maoist supremo Prachanda to work for the unification of the two left parties to ensure better performance in the CA election.

Addressing an election campaign in Baneshwor, he said Prachanda should take initiative to unify the two parties if he really thinks he is senior and “supreme”. “Prachanda should take the historic move of unifying the two parties. We would work to make him president if he succeeds. But he should forget the dream of being party chairman,” he said. He also urged Prachanda to “invest” his energy in uniting the two parties, if he really wants to be the president. “All the three major parties — NC, UML and CPN-Maoist — have raised armed revolution. Looking at the history and learning from it, there should be one strong communist party in Nepal,” he said.

He also disclosed that Prachanda had once made a plan to invite King Gyanendra to Thawang of Rolpa for final political agreement, and in another occasion, just before the King took step of February 1 coup, he was trying to shake hands with King Gyanendra, which failed just because the King had refused to give up his position as supreme commander of the Nepali Army. “During that time the conflict between Prachanda and Dr Bhattarai had reached its height. Dr Bhattarai had claimed Prachanda of being pro-monarchy and Prachanda had retaliated it by claiming Dr Bhattarai of being pro-Indian,” he said, adding that if the duo could work together for better results, there was no reason UML and Maoists cannot work for unification. CPN-UML general secretary Madhav Kumar Nepal, also said that the electoral alliance is possible in the present condition among left parties.