Kathmandu, May 24: On Friday, four vice-chairpersons, and on Saturday, General Secretary Shankar Pokharel along with three deputy general secretaries and five secretaries, expressed the view that Oli should step down from his position and support efforts to rebuild the party. Only Secretary Mahesh Basnet stood firmly in Oli’s favor.
This as meaning that 80 percent of the UML Secretariat had effectively rejected Oli.
“Our Secretariat has 19 members. Including the chairman himself and the two people who have openly spoken in his favor so far, there are only three. All the others have said the chairman should step down, one secretariat member said.
Secretaries Hikmat Karki, Padma Aryal, and Rajan Bhattarai had stated that it had become impossible to run the party at the grassroots level.
However, Oli rejected all these arguments. He declared that he would not step down after having been elected to the position.
Among the five vice-chairpersons who spoke on Saturday, only Ram Bahadur Thapa “Badal” openly supported Oli. He argued that the leadership should be backed during a time of crisis and that the party headquarters must be defended.
After finding himself in the minority within the Secretariat, pressure has mounted on Oli to resign. Nevertheless, he has already announced that he will not step down.
The secretariat meeting is taking place today also and Oli is scheduled to address the meeting.
People’s News Monitoring Service.
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