UCPN-M district chiefs seek national gathering

Kathmandu, August 31

Claiming that the party committees had become defunct due to the negligence of the leadership, 13 district chiefs of Unified CPN-Maoist today demanded a national gathering of district chiefs within a month.

Chairman of Kathmandu District Committee Himal Sharma, who had taken the initiative to hold today’s gathering of chairpersons of the districts of Newa and Tamsaling states of the party, said they were forced to hold the meeting to give life to the party committees. “With increasing gatherings of different factions of the party and parallel committees in place, the party has become more or less defunct and therefore we have taken the initiative to give life to the party,” Sharma said.

Sharma said the gathering decided to demand that the party leadership hold a national gathering of elected district chiefs of the party within a month. “If the party fails to do so, we will organise a national gathering of district chiefs ourselves,” he said, adding that today’s meeting was held spontaneously without consulting the leadership, but the conclusion was forwarded to the party headquarters through the organisational head of the party General Secretary Krishna Bahadur Mahara.

According to chairman of Sindhupalchowk Madhav Sapkota, Mahara assured he would forward the conclusion of today’s meeting to the leadership and try to hold a gathering of district chiefs without affecting the constitution promulgation process. Asked whether their initiative was intended against the activities of senior leader Baburam Bhattarai, who has formed around a dozen parallel district committees; and separate gatherings of supporters of leader Narayan Kaji Shrestha have been held, Sharma said even the party chairman was responsible for the mess in the party.

Sharma further said with no action taken against unlawful committees and gatherings, Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal too had contributed to the ongoing mess.

Today’s meeting was the result of separate gatherings of senior leader Baburam Bhattarai and supporters of Narayan Kaji Shrestha. Bhattarai has been urging the disadvantaged groups to fight for their rights.