Kathmandu, April 15

Amid criticism that the Nepali Congress has failed to play an effective role as opposition in both the Parliament and outside, the main opposition party is launching a nationwide ‘awareness campaign’ to educate people about the government’s wrongdoings.

NC Vice-president Bimalendra Nidhi today said the party would announce the campaign tomorrow to be implemented in three phases. The campaign includes informing people about the government’s wrong policies and the NC’s policies and training party workers on the implementation of the party’s amended statute.

Under the campaign, each central working committee member will spend at least a month in an assigned district and work for the expansion of the organisation and formation of lower-level committees. The CWC members will work at the village level and listen to people’s grievances and work to win their confidence.

Nidhi said the Nepal Communist Party (NCP)-led government was working against the system and constitution.  “We will not hesitate to launch an agitation if the need arises,” he said at a press conference organised to present the NC’s evaluation of the government in the past year.

Nidhi made it clear that the party was not working to topple the government and form a new government in the near future, but to inform people about the government’s activities that were against the constitution and federalism.

Nidhi condemned Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli’s appeal to NCP workers to be ready to attack the opposition that was planning agitation, yesterday. “He once ordered his party workers to attack the opposition like wild bees, but they did not obey. Now he is telling them to attack the opposition with logs and boulders,” said Nidhi. “This is very unbecoming of a prime minister.”

In its evaluation of the government’s performance in the past year, NC Spokesperson Bishwa Prakash Sharma highlighted seven areas in which the government’s achievements were nil. Sharma said the government was working against the spirit of federalism — maximum decentralisation of power. Instead, Sharma said, all the powers were being centralised in the prime minister’s office, with the latest example being the government’s bid to allow the prime minister to mobilise the army.

The NC also concluded that the government had made the judiciary and the Constitutional Council shadows of the executive, referring to the recent appointment of members of constitutional bodies in the absence of the leader of the opposition. Sharma said the government had failed to adopt a balanced foreign policy, resulting in a fall in the country’s image in the international arena.

Another area where the government failed, according to the NC, was in maintaining law and order, the NC leader said, citing a number of unresolved cases of murder, rape and abduction. As far as corruption is concerned, the NC said the government failed to investigate irregularities in Nepal Airlines Corporation aircraft procurement, construction of second international airport in Nijgad, Melamchi Drinking Water Project and Baluwatar land grab case in which a top NCP leader has been dragged.