Kathmandu, February 1

Prime Minister and Nepal Communist Party (NCP) Co-chair KP Sharma Oli is dissatisfied with NCP (NCP) leaders, including another Co-chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal, for holding a meeting on January 25 when he was in Switzerland attending the World Economic Forum summit.

Senior leaders Madhav Kumar Nepal and Jhalanath Khanal, party Spokesperson Narayan Kaji Shrestha and secretariat member Bamdev Gautam had held meeting with Dahal on January 25 to discuss issues related to the party and the government. A knowledgeable source said these leaders even told Dahal to lead the party and speak up against PM Oli.

According to sources, PM Oli’s vented his ire at Dahal and some other party leaders when they went to meet him. Dahal today had gone to discuss pending tasks of party unification with the PM and nine-member task force’s failure to complete the road map for unity at Baluwatar.

Oli came to know from his loyalists about the leaders’ separate meeting and their discussion when he returned from Davos. Oli and Dahal will also meet tomorrow to discuss issues of party unity.

According to a source, these leaders had told Dahal not to keep mum on the party unification issues, unilateral decisions of the government and its poor performance. They even told Dahal that they would stand behind him if he spoke up.

These leaders were dissatisfied with PM Oli for recommending chairpersons of the constitutional commissions without consulting them. Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba had also opposed PM Oli on the Constitutional Council’s decision recommending chairs of constitutional commissions in his absence.

NCP standing committee recently had decided that the government would take decisions after holding consultations with the party committees. Senior leaders told Dahal that PM Oli was not following the party’s decisions.

“PM Oli is arrogant, and therefore, we criticised him in the last standing committee meeting. If he does not stop making the same mistakes, we will criticise him again. We will not keep mum,” a leader, who attended the meeting in Oli’s absence, told THT.

“We had gathered that day to show our sincerity towards the government. Party leaders should not be in dilemma. We discussed plans for enhancing the government’s popularity, concluding party unification and finalising the nine-member’ task force report and nobody should take it negatively,” he said.