Kathmandu, March 26

Central Working Committee members of the Nepali Congress continued to review poll debacle.

According to a press release issued by the Nepali Congress, NC leaders Ramesh Lekhak, Dr Shekhar Koirala, Bal Bahadur KC, Ananda Prasad Dhungana, Jeevan Pariyar, Govinda Bhattarai, Ram Krishna Yadav, Dila Sangraula, Sarita Prasai, Laxmi Pariyar and invitee member Balkrishna Pandey spoke at the meeting.

Lekhak said there were multiple reasons for NC’s poor performance in the provincial and parliamentary elections and blaming the party president for poll debacle would not help the party devise right strategies. He added the mixed electoral system and vote threshold entailed poll alliance and merger of the parties, but the NC failed to adopt right policies keeping these things in mind. Lekhak said the poll alliance between the CPN-UML and the CPN-MC was the main reason behind their impressive poll victory.

Dr Koirala said the KP Sharma Oli government had, in the very beginning, showed totalitarian activities. “This government is marching ahead with the aim of capturing the state power. The loss of chief justice’s job due to a letter written by the Judicial Council’s secretary is the first step of totalitarianism,” he said. He said the Oli government would now impose press censorship and later capture security agencies. “It is not that the NC cannot fight against totalitarianism, but not in its present form,” he added.

He said reform in the party would be possible only if the party accepted the poll debacle. He said Deuba was self-centred for whom power was everything. He said the party was alienating the Madhesi community. “Why did the party appoint two governors from the Madhesi front and why it did not choose Madhesis from the party for the post?” he wondered.

Dr Koirala said the Mahasamiti meeting should be called within one-and-a-half months and early General Convention should be held before mid-May next year. NC leader Ananda Prasad Dhungana said the party’s needed to revise its statute to tackle the challenge posed by the victory of communist forces in the polls. He said the NC government’s fiscal policy needed a serious review. Dhungana said the NC government’s decision in 1992 to withdraw subsidy given to farmers also harmed NC’s poll prospects.

The NC wished speedy recovery of Khum Bahadur Khadka who is undergoing treatment in New Delhi. The party decided to send Ramesh Lekhak and Shankar Bhandari to New Delhi tomorrow to take stock of Khadka’s health condition.