KATHMANDU, DECEMBER 19

As the factions of the ruling Nepal Communist Party (NCP) led by party Co-chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal and senior leader Madhav Kumar Nepal continue to put the heat on Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli in the face of deepening intra-party feud, Oli went to Dahal’s residence to woo him, but the two sides failed to reach any understanding today.

Dahal’s personal aide Bishnu Sapkota told THT that the PM came to Dahal’s residence in Khumaltar and requested Dahal to withdraw his 19 page proposal.

“It was a continuity of the Baluwatar discussions that Dahal had been having for some days with the PM to end the deadlock in the party. Dahal told PM Oli that the proposal submitted by him and the PM had already reached the Standing Committee and the best thing would be to debate and discuss them in order to transform the party,” Sapkota quoted Dahal as telling the PM.

Dahal also said that the Standing Committee had already started discussion on the two proposals, and it would not look good if they postponed the debate on the two documents midway.

The PM, terming Dahal’s proposal an allegation paper, had sent his own 38-page rebuttal to the party Secretariat accusing Dahal of showing lust for power and promoting factionalism.

The intra-party feud deepened in the NCP after PM Oli pushed the promulgation of an ordinance amending some key provisions of the Constitutional Council Act to bypass Speaker Agni Prasad Sapkota, who he thought would neither attend the Constitutional Council meeting nor support the council’s decisions.

The ordinance enabled the Council to hold its meeting even when only three members, including the Council Chairperson were present and to take the council’s decisions through majority votes.

Although PM Oli had agreed to withdraw the ordinance after the Standing Committee meeting on Wednesday, the PM has not done so yet.

While returning to Baluwatar from Khumaltar, PM Oli also went to the ministers’ quarters at Harihar Bhawan, Lalitpur, to meet Minister of Home Affairs Ram Bahadur Thapa.

Thapa’s Press Adviser Kiran Bhattarai said the PM had gone to Thapa to inform what he had discussed with Dahal. In the meantime, three to four other ministers also gathered at Thapa’s residence and talked for a while.

During the PM’s meeting with Dahal, NCP Vice-chairperson Bamdev Gautam also came and stayed there for almost an hour.