Kathmandu, August 28:

The Central Working Committee meeting of the Nepali Congress continued today as well

with speakers urging the leadership to emotionally unify the party and win the trust of the marginalised people.

Dr Prakash Sharan Mahat, Dr Shashank Koirala, Purushottam Basnet,

Padma Narayan Chaudhary, Chakra Bastola and Bal Krishna Khan spoke at the meeting.

Dr Mahat urged the party to reconstitute all party units within two months so as to emotionally unite the party. He said the party needed to clear doubt among those people, who think the NC was a party of the rich.

He said the NC’s soft attitude towards the CPN-Maoist proved to be an incentive for the latter. He charged the CPN-Maoist with indulging in ‘systematic corruption’ and said the party needed to campaign against politicisation of the administration.

Dr Mahat said it was likely that the party would first revamp the party units and then set the date for the general convention. “If we first set the date for the convention and then try to revamp the party, factionalism may grip the party again,” he said.

Chaudhari said early convention was the only solution to the problem of factionalism and urged the leadership to fix the date for the meet.

He said party general secretary Bimalendra Nidhi only spoke of good roles of the party and did not mention weaknesses of the party in his paper.

Another leader Chakra Prasad Bastola urged the party to follow a middle path to hold the convention immediately. He disagreed with the plans of party restructuring presented both by Koirala and Deuba factions.

The Koirala faction wants to dissolve the entire district chapters of the party, while Deuba faction calls for 60/40 of the two factions at all levels. Bastola said almost all the speakers criticised the party leadership for the CA poll defeat and urged the leadership to chart a new course in line with present realities. “In the past, we forgot the spirit of nationalism and socialism.”

Meanwhile, 11 NC leaders, including former speaker Tara Nath Ranabhat, blamed the current leadership for the CA poll defeat and demanded general convention at the earliest. Issuing a press statement, the leaders said all party units must be dissolved as soon as possible to hold the convention.

They said that the NC was defeated in the polls as it abandoned its values and traditions. Ranabhat, a staunch supporter of constitutional monarchy, is in minority within the party.

The leaders urged the political parties and the government to implement the peace pacts and rehabilitate the displaced.