By Our Reporter
The fate of the ruling Nepal Communist Party still looks uncertain. By the time this news story was filed on Wednesday, the powerful party of the past two years was heading towards an inevitable split with the opposite views of the two chairmen—Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli and Pushpa Kamal Dahal — regarding the ongoing secretariat meeting and the proposed meeting of the Party Standing Committee slated for Thursday.
While Oli has been arguing that there was no need to hold the meeting(s) until Dahal withdraws his political proposal submitted on November 13, Dahal and majority members of the nine-member secretariat have put both the proposals for discussions.
On Tuesday, only Home Minister Ram Bahadur Thapa of the nine-member party secretariat spoke in favour of Oli stating that there was no need to discuss the proposals while five members, including Deputy Prime Minister Ishwar Pokhrel, expressed views for discussions of both the proposals. However, general secretary Bishnu Paudel did not express any view on Tuesday meeting.
Although Oli was not intending to call the secretariat meeting for Wednesday, the meeting was called by a majority to discuss the proposals.
Prime Minister Oli is obviously in minority in the secretariat and Standing and Central Committees of the party when Dahal and Madhav Kumar Nepal stand together. Thus, the meetings of the secretariat and Standing committee is likely to formally decide that Oli should quit one or both (chairman and PM) posts with majority compelling Oli to split the party.
Moreover, Oli seems to helpless after senior leader Nepal’s claim that there was no division of the former UML and former Maoist in the NCP and there was no chance that the former UML leaders would be with Oli if the party got split. This claim floated by Nepal has served a severe blow to Prime Minister Oli who was hoping that the division could take the party to the situation before the general elections. And it was evident from Tuesday’s secretariat meeting in which Ishwar Pokhrel opposed Oli’s line of not discussing the proposals.
When secretariat members Dahal, Nepal, Jhalanath Khanal, Bam Dev Gautam and Narayankaji Shrestha have been against PM Oli since long, these leaders are likely to be together in case the party gets divided. As such, it will be Oli who will be blamed for the division. But at the same time, unity could be maintained if Oli agrees to quit the post of party chairman and become a weak PM for the remaining two years. But Oli’s nature will not allow him to be flexible. Thus, chances of division look very high at the moment.
Prachanda gets a strong reply from Oli
By Our Reporter
With deepening crisis in the ruling Nepal Communist Party Party, its chairmen KP Sharma Oli and Pushpa Kamal Dahal have now started exchanging letters and documents, criticising each other, instead of holding friendly meetings.
When Dahal wrote a letter to Oli on November 13 including his 19-page documents pointing weaknesses of Prime Minister Oli, the letter responded to the former by presenting a 38-page document rejecting all allegations labelled by Dahal against him.
Dahal in his letter had accused Prime Minister Oli of promoting corruption, showing authoritarian character, risking the nationality and violating the party rules among others. Dahal termed the weaknesses of Oli as ‘Oli tendency’, which irked the Prime Minister Oli. During the insurgency period, Dahal had coined ‘Alok tendency’ while criticising Yan Prasad Gautam, the slain Maoist leader. Dahal exactly repeated the term while criticising Oli.
However, Prime Minister Oli gave a fitting reply to all accusations, mentioning every deed of Dahal from the ‘people’s war’ to the present day.
Prime Minister Oli has responded to Prachanda’s proposal word by word and rejected the latter’s proposal terming it to be full of lies and misinformation.
Chairman Oli has dismissed accusations that he was running the government without consulting with the party. Instead, he accused Prachanda of not cooperating while handling the party’s affairs.
Oli had even questioned Dahal how the latter could tell that he was responsible for the deaths of 5,000 Nepalis during the 1996-2006 armed insurgencies. By raising the issue, Oli had linked Dahal in the killings of people. He had also asked Dahal why he did not raise the issue of Kalapani when he led the government twice. He asked whether Dahal did justice to his colleagues and who were taking benefit from him.
Chairman Oli had presented the political proposal as per the commitment he had made in the earlier meeting.
However, the two reports tend to disclose the weaknesses of both the chairmen, although Oli’s looks like a threat as he has raised several issues related to the ‘people’s war’ and the property amassed by Dahal and men loyal to him. Moreover, Oli has indirectly accused Dahal of working for foreign forces giving a few examples right from the time of presidential elections of 2008.
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