By Our Reporter
Sher Bahadur Deuba has emerged as the strong NC president along with his reelection to the post for the next term with a sweeping majority in the party central committee from the 14th general convention held earlier this month.
Although it was uncertain until a month ago whether the NC could hold its general convention within mid-December because of COVID-19 and the nature of party president Deuba himself.
However, the convention was held and Deuba got reelected in a dramatic development that unfolded immediately after the conclusion of the first round of election of party president in which Deuba was short of 82 votes to get reelected.
But in the second round, Prakash Man Singh and Bimalendra Nidhi, who had contested the election for party president with a firm determination of winning it and defeating Deuba but got only merger votes, less than 380, backed Deuba in the second round for no apparent reason. Had Singh and Nidhi stuck in their earlier stance and had Deuba not been Prime Minister, Dr. Shekhar Koirala would have been elected in the second round.
However, Dr. Koirala succeeded to establish himself as the strong single leader in the party as he managed to garner 40 per cent votes on his own with two youth strong leaders—Dhan Raj Gurung and Gagan Thapa from his group getting elected as vice president and general secretary. Even Bishwaprakash Sharma was elected general secretary because of Koirala’s backing.
Interestingly, Dr. Koirala failed to win the trust of senior leader Ram Chandra Paudel, leaders Shashank Koirala and Sujata Koirala of the Koirala family as they did not openly support him. But he obtained high votes and sidelined all the leaders who were in the rival faction led by Ram Chandra Paudel. The rise of Shekhar has also ended the political career of many second generations of leaders. In a sense, he virtually ended the political career of Paudel, Shashank, Sujata, Singh and Nidhi as they could never return to party power unless Dr. Koirala shows pity on them.
The establishment of Dr. Shekhar Koirala as an undisputed leader is one of the features of the 14th convention of the party. Secondly, youth leaders like Gurung, Sharma and Thapa reached the key post of the party by defeating senior leaders.
Gurung defeated Bijay Gachhadhar while Thapa and Sharma defeated Dr. Prakash Sharan Mahat and Minenndra Rijal.
The defeat of Mahat and Gachchhadar came as a blow to Deuba as he had made their victory an issue of prestige.
When the post of general secretaries went to the two youth from the rival camp and when Gurung won the seat of vice president, Deuba will be facing a big challenge in the new committee. Although he enjoys a comfortable majority in the central committee, he might not succeed to implement everything he wants because of the youth leaders, who give priority to the system rather than the benefit of particular leaders.
Now Deuba has limited options to pick his men in the central committee, as he had to adjust those who lost the elections and those who did not contest the elections.
Although Deuba failed to have his men in the key posts of office bearers, he succeeded to have central members of his choice as over 75 per cent of the members loyal to him were made to the central committee. His wife Arzu Rana and his several yes ‘men’ and ‘women’ have been elected to the central committee.
Fate of MCC still uncertain
Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba seems determined to endorse the bill on the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) as the agreement on it was signed during his premiership in 2017. However, the coalition parties — especially the Maoist Centre and the CPN (Unified Socialist) are against the endorsement of MCC as it is. But an amendment to any provision of MCC is not possible as the USA had already clarified that the pact could not be amended.
While the ruling Nepali Congress wants to endorse the MCC from the current session of the parliament, the main opposition is looking to break the present coalition through MCC. UML chair K.P. Sharma Oli had tried his best to pass it in the past still wants to pass it. At the same time, he will have his party leaders oppose the MCC with an intention of getting benefits from elections. Again, he is ready to support the government to pass the MCC on the condition that Prime Minister Deuba ends the present coalition.
Of course, the Maoist Centre and the CPN (Unified Socialist) are in a difficult position because they cannot pass the MCC as it is following their previous stances and if they do not support the bill, their political future will be bleak because a breach in the present coalition could be suicidal for both the parties. They cannot win a single seat in the parliamentary election next year if they fail to save the coalition.
The US government to exerting pressure on the Nepali leaders to pass the MCC and it said it would wait till March for the endorsement of MCC from the Nepali parliament.
Maoist Center holding national convention next week
The Maoist Centre is now preparing to hold its national convention next week from December 26 to 28 in Kathmandu.
Recently, it concluded its provincial convention in all seven provinces and two other areas.
Although the party elected province committees unopposed in many of the provinces, the party had to hold elections in Bagmati while it has not yet named leadership in five provinces owing to disputes.
According to the results made public on Tuesday, Saral Sahayatri Poudel has been elected as the chairman of the party in Bagmati Province Committee.
The party centre decided to conduct the election on Monday after it was unable to select leaders unanimously. Chairperson Poudel got 162 votes whereas his rival Dinanath Gautam got 86 votes in the election.
Similarly, Rupa Maharjan, Ram Prasad Dhungana and Prem Bahadur Pulami were elected as vice-chairpersons, Indra Bahadur Thing as secretary, Dal Bahadur Burlakoti, Madhav Prasad Lamichhane and Prakash Shrestha as joint secretaries and Sangita Bhattarai as treasurer.
Prior to this, Gayatri Gurung was elected as the chairperson of Gandaki Province, Bimala KC as the chairperson of Karnali Province, Jagat Sinkhada as the chairperson of Valley Special Province and Shrikrishna Adhikari as the chairperson of the Liaison Coordination Province.
As the number of aspirants for the leadership of the provinces is increased, the selection of leadership was delayed. The Maoists had held a conference of seven geographical and two non-geographical provinces on December 10.
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