Pressure mounts on NCP chairs to call CC meet

KATHMANDU, JULY 29

As many as 152 members of the Central Committee of Nepal Communist Party (NCP) today wrote a letter to party co-chairpersons Pushpa Kamal Dahal and KP Sharma Oli demanding that a meeting of the Central Committee be held as soon as possible to discuss all issues that the party currently faces.

The move of the ruling party’s Central Committee members comes at a time when the rival faction of the party led by Dahal and senior leader Madhav Kumar Nepal has asked Oli to step down either as prime minister or NCP co-chair. Oli, however, has refused to quit any of the two posts.

NCP Central Committee members who penned the letter to both co-chairs said that they were worried about the rift between the two leaders and wanted all issues to be settled by the Central Committee as per the accepted rules and system.

Gopal Thakur, who is among the 152 NCP leaders seeking CC meeting, said all the contentious issues should be settled by the Central Committee as Dahal and Oli had failed to narrow down their differences even after holding multiple rounds of one-on-one talks and group negotiations.

“Communist parties practice collective leadership, but in our party Oli is acting unilaterally,” said Thakur.

He added that repeated postponement of the Standing Committee meeting gave an impression that the NCP was unable to take decisions.

He said all leaders, including the party co-chairs would have to abide by the party’s decisions.

“Oli has created deadlock in the party which is affecting the entire country,” he added. Thakur said Central Committee members also wanted to know why the government had failed to control the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“There are also some governance issues that we want to discuss. If the government bought health equipment under government to government deal, why were they so costly? Stuff bought under government to government deal should be available at relatively cheaper price,” he argued.

Another CC member and lawmaker Ram Kumari Jhankri said they had demanded CC meeting to save party unity and to ensure the government’s effectiveness.

“Twenty members of the Standing Committee had written a letter demanding Standing Committee meeting. Leaders delayed holding the Standing Committee meeting.

Even now they have been postponing it. This reflects indecision. We want CC meeting to be convened immediately,” Jhankri said. She added that the CC was the party’s highest political body that could remove any leader or nominate anybody to any party body. She said the CC could settle all political issues, including those related to party organisation and ideology. She said deadlock in the party had affected governance.

She said CC members were against the personal give and take between the two co-chairs.

Jhankri said the government had failed to control the spread of COV- ID-19 and to carry out effective relief and rescue operation for flood and landslide affected people. “We don’t feel the presence of the government,” Jhankri added.

According to Jhankri, her party is bound to call the CC meeting within 30 days after 25 per cent members demand CC meeting. With 449 members in the ruling party’s Central Committee, 152 is way above that threshold.

A version of this article appears in e-paper on July 30, 2020, of The Himalayan Times.

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