Kathmandu, December 8

Four members of the Nepal Communist Party (NCP) — Madhav Kumar Nepal, Jhala Nath Khanal, Bamdev Gautam and Narayan Kaji Shrestha — today left Baluwatar in protest after a scheduled meeting of party’s Secretariat did not start on time.

These four leaders had gathered at the Prime Minister’s official residence in Baluwatar for party’s Secretariat meeting scheduled for 3:00 pm, but when the party chairpersons and general secretary did now show up for the meeting even at 3:15 pm, the four leaders skipped the meeting in protest.

Party Spokesperson Narayan Kaji Shrestha said they left in protest to pressure the party leadership to start party meetings on time and manage party affairs in a more systematic way.

Shrestha said the party had decided in the previous Secretariat meeting that they would start meetings on the scheduled  time and if there was

any valid reason for delaying the scheduled meetings by more than 15 minutes, then the leadership would duly notify about it, but the leadership did not issue such notification today.

“We waited for 15 minutes more, but we did not get any notification after which we left,” he said.

“Our protest is not against any individual leader. We want to give a strong message that party affairs must be handled in systematic manner,” he said.

A source at the PM’s Private Secretariat said the four leaders left Baluwatar saying that they felt snubbed as they were made to wait for long. Other members of the Standing Committee Ishwa Pokharel and Ram Bahadur Thapa had not reached Baluwatar when these four leaders were present.

According to the source, Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli and Pushpa Kamal Dahal were present in Baluwatar but were talking to some people about the health condition of former member of Parliament Mani Khambu, who recently underwent surgery.

NCP (NCP) Central Committee member Bishnu Rijal wrote in his facebook post after the incident: Today’s incident reminds of an incident when Jhala Nath Khanal was the party chair eight years ago. Police personnel manning the (Baluwatar) gate told party leader KP Oli that he had not received the names from inside and he wanted to ask inside (before allowing him in). After this Oli said “I cannot tolerate such humiliation” and he returned from there within a minute, did not go to Baluwatar again till the time Khanal was the Prime Minister.

Other five members of the party Secretariat held the meeting and decided to hold party’s Standing Committee meeting on December 15.