By Our Reporter MC UMLThe unification process between the CPN-UML and the Maoist Centre has not made any important headway although chiefs of both the parties have been holding one meeting after another to accelerate the unification process. It seems instead of doing concrete works on the unification, the two top leaders seemed to be busy dividing the posts of the chief ministers and speakers of the state assemblies and ensuring the victory of key candidates to the National Assembly. On Monday, K P Oli and Pushpa Kamal Dahal succeeded to withdraw the candidacy of UML leader Beduram Bhusal from NA election to ensure victory of Maoist leader Ram Bahadur Thapa. Likewise, they decided to divide the posts of chief ministers among the two parties. According to which, Maoist leaders will be chief ministers in Province No. 6 and 7 while the UML leaders will lead the government in Province No. 1, 3, 4 and 5. They also divided the seats of speakers and deputy speakers. However, as reported by the media, the main dispute between the two parties has been the post of party chairman. When CPN-UML chair Oli is almost sure to lead the new government, the Maoists want Pushpa Kamal Dahal should be made the party chair. But UML leaders are not still ready to accept Dahal as party chair as they argue that the Left Alliance won the election due to Oli’s leadership. Again the UML is stronger than the Maoist Centre in their organisations. Because of this, UML wants to grant Dahal only the post of co-chairman, which the Maoist-Centre is not ready to accept. There are internal and external elements which are also active to prevent the two parties from getting unified. As such, unification of the two left parties looks difficult in the near future although the leaders of both the parties have been reiterating that the two parties would be unified at any cost.