Perhaps, this is the NC's worst CC meeting after its formation in the year 1946 following the merger of the Nepal Democracy Congress and the Nepali National Congress
The much-awaited meeting of the Central Committee (CC) of the Nepali Congress (NC) has sent a depressing signal to its supporters in and outside the country. The expectation was that it would provide a new hope to its followers by making some breakthrough decisions. But apart from a solitary act of transmitting the meeting live, which is certainly an eye opener to the other parties in view of their meetings underway behind the curtain, it failed miserably to stand to the people's expectation.
The NC appeared more divided after the meeting with the note of dissent written by its charismatic Secretary General Gagan Thapa.
The NC had received an electoral drubbing in 2017 because of its inability to come forward with a bold stand in the face of the border blockade causing inconvenience to the people in the country, in general, and the Kathmandu Valley, in particular. The silence of the NC on the Bal Krishna Khand episode will lead the NC to yet another electoral precipice. If history is any indication, it will be worse than the Constituent As-sembly election of 2008 when the Maoist Centre (MC) swept the polls, or the 2017 election when the UML and MC duo had a landslide victory especially as then Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) had not yet come into existence.
It has given a pretext for the NC members and supporters for an escapade to other parties, primarily the RSP, after the recent debacle in the by- election with Swarnim Wagly joining the RSP and securing a thumping win against the NC old horse Govinda Bhattarai.
The NC often parrots about such political elopement, labelling them non-damaging, duly citing the cases of Parsu Narayan Chaudhary, Bakhan Singh Gurung and the likes, and the political indifference of Ganesh Man Singh and Krishna Prasad Bhattarai after being irked by Girija Prasad Koirala.
But much dirt has flown down the Bagmati River between then and now. Even though nobody dared to join another party due to political sanity prevailing in the NC in the nineties, the participation of the dissident candidates, nevertheless, led to the political slump of the NC in the midterm poll. Consequently,the UML emerged as the largest party in the parliament, duly pushing the NC to the second rank from the majority that it enjoyed in the 1990 general election.
The NC is now being perceived as a political party which not only protects but also promotes corruption in the country. Its hushed silence with respect to the suspension of Bal Krishna Khand, the former homeminister, reflects this grim reality. This is in stark contrast to the UML which suspended its secretary Top Bahadur Rayamajhi within hours of being arrested in the Bhutanese refugee scam and the firing of Dhaka Kumar Shrestha from all the responsibilities of the party following his engagement in corrupt practices by the RSP.
Thank God that Gagan Thapa signed a note of dissent, which has given the impression that there is a group in the NC which be-lieves in zero tolerance of corruption. This could certainly be described as a silver lining amidst the dark clouds hovering in the NC at the present. But this group appeared to be hopelessly outnumbered with the president, Sher Bahadur Deuba, enjoying a mammoth majority.
In addition, the NC has now been projected as a constitution violating partyalso. Its democratic credentials are now like the showing teeth of the elephant only. Its chewing teeth are symptomatic of corruption, unconstitutionality and lethargy, as indicated by the failure to appoint the treasurer and the likes. This is proved by the blatant violation of Para 9.34.ka of its constitution, which states that a party member is subject to party indiscipline if it acts contrary to the party's ideals, ideology and policy, which are certainly not engagement in corruption.In the following 8.gha, the central disciplinary committee has been empowered to suspend the erring member, which unfortunately turned a deaf ear in the CC meeting. It forwarded the lame argument that it had not handed over any punitive action earlier for instance to Khum Bahadur Khadka or Chiranjivi Wagley and hence not to Khand, which the new generation in the NC is not going to be satisfied with.
Perhaps, this is the worst CC meeting of the Nepali Congress after its formation in the year 1946 following the merger of the Nepal Democracy Congress, led by dissenting Rana families, and the Nepali National Congress led by B P Koirala.
Its meeting held in Tiger Cinema Hall, Calcutta, owned by Maha Veer Shumsher, in early April made decisions like the establishment of a political system responsible to the people through whatever means under constitutional monarchy. Understood that the NC was heading for a people's revolution that time as against a rather peaceful period at the moment, but it does not even mirror in the miniature of its earlier glory. It is a mere shadow of its former self.
The NC is virtually like a rudderless ship at the present.
It could not hold a policy convention which it had postponed to take place in the future. Consequently, the NC volunteers have been chanting age-old rhymes of democracy, nationalism, socialism without knowing what they stand for.
Despite this, the Deuba supporters have upheld his leadership, citing the victory in the local, provincial and federal elections as well as the presence in the provincial and federal government under his leadership.
But they have failed to see the recent debacle suffered by it in the by-election, which is an indicator of events to follow.
It reminds one of the story entitled The Emperor's New Clothes, where the die-hard supporters describe the emperor dressed with the imperial robes despite being nude. A small boy bravely exposes the nudity of the emperor, which everybody accepts.
Gagan Thapa has precisely performed this role. He may be the only savior to the NC ship, which is otherwise heading for political troubled waters in the days to come.
A version of this article appears in the print on August 1, 2023, of The Himalayan Times.
