KATHMANDU, NOVEMBER 18

Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli, who unsuccessfully tried to postpone today’s scheduled meeting of the Nepal Communist Party (NCP) Secretariat, eventually attended the meeting as the rival faction led by Co-chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal went ahead with its plan and held the meeting on schedule at the PM’s official residence in Baluwatar.

Party Spokesperson Narayan Kaji Shrestha told mediapersons after the meeting that the next meeting of the Secretariat would be convened on November 28.

The nine-member Secretariat will discuss the crisis facing the party and dwell on ways to resolve it on the basis of proposals to be presented by Oli and other documents that are there for the Secretariat’s consideration, added Shrestha.

Dahal had earlier presented a 19-page proposal in the Secretariat meeting on Friday. He told THT that Oli asked for 10 days to respond to his proposal to which party leaders had agreed.

Senior NCP leader Madhav Kumar Nepal told Oli that he could take his time to respond to Dahal’s proposal, but the PM should neither try to postpone the Secretariat meeting nor refuse to attend it.

Oli is under pressure to reconcile his differences with the rival faction as he is in minority in all the key bodies of the party — the Secretariat, Standing Committee and Central Committee.

War of words between the two factions has intensified with Dahal presenting a 19-page proposal in the last Secretariat meeting countering a 10-page reply by Oli to a letter written by five members of the Secretariat seeking his consent to the Secretariat meeting. In the 19-page proposal, Dahal has accused Oli of flouting party norms and not honouring the power sharing deal with him in the past.

The Oli faction has termed it a document of baseless allegations.

The PM’s Press Adviser Surya Thapa and Lumbini Province Chief Minister Shankar Pokharel, who is close to Oli, wrote in their Facebook posts that Dahal should withdraw his proposal.

When asked to comment on Oli’s meeting with Chinese Ambassador to Nepal Hou Yanqi and President Bidhya Devi Bhandari’s alleged mediation to resolve the intra-party feud, Shrestha said they would not tolerate foreign interference in Nepal’s domestic affairs. He added that the president should stay away from NCP’s internal affairs.

Shrestha said the meeting also decided to hold the Standing Committee meeting on December 3 and the Central Committee meeting on December 10.

The Dahal faction has accused the PM of ignoring party decisions, making appointments to constitutional bodies without consulting party bodies and inciting NCP lawmakers in Karnali Province to file a no-trust motion against Chief Minister Mahendra Bahadur Shahi.