Kathmandu, February 9

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence Ishwar Pokhrel, who is close to Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli, has written a long facebook post saying persons who suffer from mood swings  should not be brought into the  party’s leadership.

He further wrote, “The leader who wants to lead a communist party must be a familiar face, established and accepted personality. Rejected person should not be brought to the party leadership. More important is to reject those people who suffer mood swings because if such people are brought into the leadership that will be unfortunate.”

He said the NCP should also chart this course. “The future of the party and the country depends on how party cadres overcome the challenges facing the party,” he added.

It is not clear who Pokhrel has targeted in his angry facebook post. Pokhrel wrote the post at a time when two co-chairpersons of the Nepal Communist Party (NCP) KP Sharma Oli and Pushpa Kamal Dahal remain divided on the Venezuela issue.

Dahal had issued a statement criticising ‘USA’ interference in Venezuela’ which Oli later criticised, saying it was a slip on Dahal’s part and the language used in the statement was not appropriate. Dahal countered his statement saying the party secretariat issued a statement supporting the spirit of his statement on Venezuela. Pokhrel had angered Dahal and some former Maoist leaders a few months ago when he said there would be only one leader in the party who would be both the chair and Parliamentary party leader, hinting that Oli would hold both posts.

Pokhrel wrote that there were forces inside and outside the country that were hell bent on creating rift and division in the NCP and the party needed to be vigilant against these forces. Pokhrel said the party needed to give answers to detractors through policies and programmes. He said there was a need for doing good work than delivering impressive speeches.

On issues of party unification, Pokhrel stated that the party needed to debate ideological, organisational and leadership aspects before reaching a conclusion. He wrote that the party could not move ahead if it left any grey area on matters of ideology.    When asked how he viewed Pokhrel’s comments, NCP (NCP) Spokesperson Narayan Kaji Shrestha said he had no comments on personal views of Pokhrel and his party was moving ahead to realise basically two goals — to achieve party unity and the country’s prosperity.