By Our Reporter
Avoiding for months, Nepali Congress president Sher Bahadur Deuba is now chairing the party’s Central Working Committee meeting at the party’s central office in Sanepa.
The rival leaders have been exerting pressure on party president Deuba to call the party’s CWC meeting immediately after the elections to the House of Representatives on November 20, 2022 to review the election results. The NC which forged an electoral alliance with the Maoist Centre and CPN (Unified Socialist) could not fare well in the elections and won just 57 of the 165 seats under the First-Past-The-Post election system. The rival faction led by Dr. Shekhar Koirala and the party general secretary had blamed the alliance and the wrong candidates under the PR category for the defeat because many traditional NC voters voted against the party because of some candidates like Arzu Rana and Manju Khand picked for the PR category. Likewise, after the November poll, the NC-Maoist alliance broke for a while and Pushpa Kamal Dahal became the Prime Minister with the backing of the CPN-UML. General Secretary Thapa and other leaders from rival factions demanded a CWC meeting, but Deuba had not called it fearing criticism and dispute in the party.
According to the party statute, the CWC meeting should be convened every two months, but Deuba had not called it since July last year. Instead, he was deciding by holding a meeting of the party’s work execution committee.
But this time he not only called the CWC meeting but also decided to live stream it. On Tuesday, it was live-streamed.
The NC, Nepal’s grand old party, is now mired in internal disputes. Ahead of its current Central Working Committee meeting, disputes between the party’s establishment led by party president Sher Bahadur Deuba and the rival faction led by leader Dr. Shekhar Koirala had spilt over in different manifestations.
Mainly party general secretary Gagan Kumar Thapa, who is from Dr. Koirala’s faction, has been accusing the party president of keeping the party in a status quo. Thapa threatened that he would move to change the party’s Parliamentary Party leader to prevent Deuba from becoming Prime Minister next time. But, his faction leader Dr. Koirala has kept mum over changing the party’s parliamentary party leader.
There are many issues that the party has not resolved to date after the party’s 14th general convention on December 13-15, 2021. The party has not performed tasks as provisioned in the statute, and the rival faction has pointed its finger at Deuba for all that.
As per the statute, the party president should nominate 33 Central Working Committee members but Deuba had appointed only 23. He has not picked a treasurer and formed 26 departments.
However, on the first day on Tuesday, no dispute as was suspected surfaced.
In the CWC meeting, the party leaders are likely to discuss the future road map of the party, review the election results, and expand the party organization as well as other issues.
Political analysts viewed that NC’s current disputes were artificial, not deep ones. But Deuba is likely to face criticism for the poor performance of the party.
It is not new that the factional disputes in the NC have existed since the establishment phase. Due to disputes between BP Koirala and Matrika Prasad Koirala, the party split in 2009 BS. In 2059 BS, the party had split due to disputes between party president Girija Prasad Koirala and then Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba.
Login to add a comment