KATHMANDU; After failing to decide on a 175-member central committee, the Unified CPN-Maoist is preparing for a jumbo one with 275 members. The party’s central committee has 137 members now.

The CC meetings held on Saturday and Sunday failed to select 38 members of the hundreds of competent leaders and, thus, have now opted to add 138 more members, instead.

Dinanath Sharma, party’s spokesperson said, “We have forwarded the names recommended by the State Committees to the task force led by general secretary Ram Bahadur Thapa ‘Badal’ and asked it to finalise the list.” The party’s standing committee will also look into the list tomorrow and the central committee meeting scheduled for Thursday will finalise it, Sharma added.

All the 38 members recommended earlier by the task force for the central committee and 16 members suggested for the politburo will also be incorporated in the new list.

The 48 new members to be incorporated in the politburo include Anjana Bishankhe, Pawanman Shrestha ‘Pravakiran’, Amrita Thapa, Kamala Rokka, Hit Bahadur Tamang, Sarala Regmi, Kali Bahadur Malla, Padam Rai, Kumar Poudel, Dhan Bahadur Maski, Tej Bahadur Oli, Hakikullah Khan, Purna Bahadur Gharti, Ghanashyam Sharma Poudel, N K Prasai, Jivan Yadav, Ram Rijhan Yadav, Khagaraj Bhatta, Dor Prasad Upadhyay, Ram Prasad Banjade ‘Tankamani’, Ganga Shrestha and Ganeshman Pun ‘Rashmi,’ among others. Other possible names for the politburo in terms of seniority include Dinesh Sharma, Ganga Karki and Bhakta Bahadur Shah.

The central committee has also agreed to leave around 17 seats vacant to incorporate leaders from other parties that would be unified with the UCPN-Maoist in the near future.

According to a politburo member, all the state committees have been instructed to provide names of at least 8-10 members each on the basis of seniority. Women and other those belonging to disadvantaged groups must be necessarily in the list. The state committees have already provided the names.