The Central Working Committee (CWC) meeting of the ruling Nepali Congress (NC) that concluded on Tuesday decided to forge an electoral alliance at the local level with other coalition partners in the federal government based only on the "local need and situation", giving the chills to other collation partners who were pushing for building the alliance from the centre. The CPN-Maoist Centre (CPN-MC), CPN-Unified Socialist (CPN-US) and Janata Samajbadi Party - major coalition partners - had been pressing PM Sher Bahadur Deuba to forge a poll alliance against the main opposition, CPN-UML, in the upcoming civic polls scheduled for May 13. However, PM Deuba could not convince the CWC members to make the poll alliance with the coalition partners from the centre. As per the NC's statute, the CWC can take a decision only for mayor and deputy mayor of six metropolitan cities. Provincial party committees have the power to field candidates for mayors and deputy-mayors of sub-metropolises and municipalities.

Candidates for chiefs and deputy-chiefs of rural municipalities will be selected by constituency party committees. It means the NC will make an electoral alliance with the coalition partners at the centre, provinces, districts and regional level. It clearly shows that there will be no uniformity while making the poll alliance among the coalition partners, who have teamed up against the UML at the centre.

The NC's decision to forge the poll alliance with others at the local level as per the local need has made them suspicious.

Deuba is keen on leaving Bharatpur Metropolitan City (BMC) to the CPN-MC, where CPN- MC boss wants a repeat of his daughter Renu Dahal as its mayor. But the Shekhar Koirala faction of the NC and local NC cadres have warned of staging a coup should Deuba go against their sentiment. BMC is going to be a litmus test for the coalition partners.

Should the local cadres of Chitwan go against the decision of the centre, the prospect of forging a poll alliance among the coalition partners in other metropolitan cities will also come to an end. It is likely to create fissure in the centre.

While PM Deuba wants to save the coalition till the next general election, the Koirala faction, however, is much more focussed on consolidating the party organisation by fielding as many candidates as possible in the upcoming civic polls. The coalition partners will hold discussion about the modality of forging the civic poll alliance after Deuba returns from his India visit. The coalition partners may find a way out either by ceding 50 per cent of the local level seats to the NC or sharing the posts of mayors and deputy-mayors based on the votes that they received during the last polls. But they have not discussed them in detail. The NC's decision is sure to create rupture in the alliance as the CPN-MC and CPN-US will not be in a position to win the mayor's position even in a single municipality without the backing of the local NC cadres, who are already averse to this idea.

Should the electoral alliance at the local level break up or does not work as per the understanding reached at the centre, it will have a huge impact on the next general election, which should be held in the next eight months.

The war in Ukraine has impacted all countries, big and small, and Nepal is no exception. Not only is it having to pay a higher price for all imports, ranging from cooking oil and petroleum products, but also for the electricity that it imports during the dry season from India. A shortage of coal in India, caused by disruption in its supply, coupled with rising prices worldwide has pushed up the cost of importing power to Rs 38 a unit, more than double of what Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) used to pay in the past.

But even when Nepal is willing to pay the exorbitant price, industries are reeling under a power outage of up to 12 hours a day.

The peak hour demand for electricity is about 1,600 MW, but Nepal's power plants produce only about 40 per cent of the need, requiring it to import power. The situation will persist until the monsoon starts, which normally begins on June 10, when Nepal starts seeing a surplus, enough for exports.

So NEA must do all it can within its means to supply adequate power to the industries to keep them running. In a worse case scenario, businesses may have no option other than to switch to diesel generators as in the past when electricity supply was most unreliable.

A version of this article appears in the print on March 31, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.