Kathmandu: CPN UML Vice Chairman Ram Bahadur Thapa “Badal” has completely rejected the draft report prepared by party General Secretary Shankar Pokhrel on the election review and party reorganisation, and has prepared a 39-page counter report defending party Chairman KP Sharma Oli.
Titled “CPN UML’s Common Commitment for Party Consolidation, Transformation and Rejuvenation,” the document will be presented at the task force meeting scheduled for Friday.
In his preliminary draft, Pokhrel, who also served as the task force’s member secretary, had proposed party reorganisation while assigning responsibility for the electoral defeat to the party leadership. The proposal reportedly angered Chairman Oli.
Following Oli’s dissatisfaction, task force coordinator Badal set aside Pokhrel’s report and prepared a new document that largely clears Oli of responsibility for the party’s electoral defeat.
Badal’s report compares Pokhrel’s draft with the 19-page charge sheet presented by the Prachanda Madhav faction in 2020, describing it as a “conspiracy to remove the chairman” and an “untimely move.” Badal has also accused office bearers elected on Oli’s panel at the party’s general convention of trying to shift blame onto the chairman when they faced difficulties, in an attempt to portray themselves as blameless.
The report argues that the party’s electoral defeat on March 5 was not the result of failure by the party leadership. Instead, it attributes the defeat to the destruction on Bhadra 23 and 24, the dissolution of parliament and what it describes as a “colour revolution” engineered in Nepal by external power centres.
Recalling Oli’s stance against the economic blockade, his role in publishing Nepal’s revised map featuring the Limpiyadhura, Lipulekh and Kalapani areas, and his contribution to protecting national sovereignty, the report argues that attempting to remove a chairman elected with 75 per cent of the vote at the 11th General Convention on the pretext of one electoral defeat would go against the people’s mandate.
Badal has also completely rejected the ideas being promoted by the general secretary’s camp, including a 70-year age limit, a two-term limit and the proposal to turn the party into a “mass party.” He has described these proposals as right-wing and populist.
People’s News Monitoring Service
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