The 11th general convention of the Nepali Congress, scheduled to start from today, has been postponed for an indefinite period. It is only a logical decision given the present political circumstances under which a number of political leaders, for example, Congress president Girija Prasad Koirala himself, have been placed under house arrest or detained elsewhere. Certain fundamental rights — even the writ petitions to enforce those rights not suspended by the emergency orders — are not being entertained at the Supreme Court. In a statement issued on Monday, Koirala alleged that the Congress has been compelled to call off its general convention. However, most of the district conventions, which need to precede the national one, have been completed.

In his statement Koirala has put stress on his party’s ‘firm conviction’ that the restoration of the Lower House is necessary to protect ‘parliamentary democracy, human rights, and the rule of law.’ He called for cooperation of all in the peaceful movement launched with certain demands, including respect for the 1990 Constitution. Koirala’s emphasis on House restoration assumes particular significance, as the other day five political parties, including the Nepali Congress and sacked prime minister Sher Bahadur Deuba’s NC-D, had signed a joint statement announcing the joint movement, but they remained silent on the question of House restoration, which is central to Koirala’s party. The NC-D has from the start rejected any suggestion for the restoration while the Congress always vetoed any proposal for the NC-D’s inclusion in the earlier five-party movement.

This contradiction between the five-party document and Koirala’s statement suggests, though oddly, that the signatory to the joint statement from the Congress, Bal Bahadur Rai, a senior leader, may have acted without the party president’s green signal. Koirala’s statement reduces the possibility of the re-unification of the Congress and the NC-D. Koirala has also referred to the dissolution of the House on Deuba’s recommendation, putting it and the February 1 step in the same bracket. Therefore, the Congress and the NC-D, far from being united again, may not even find themselves working together, at least for now. On the political situation in Nepal, the major democratic countries, which provide most of its military and development aid and which have therefore come to exercise considerable influence over it, have called for the lifting of the emergency and the restoration of the democratic rights. This factor, along with certain other domestic ones, will shape the course of political developments in Nepal in the days ahead, irrespective of the ties between the Congress and the NC-D.