Kathmandu, July 22: The Nepal Congress marked the birth anniversary of its founder and the country’s first elected prime minister, Bishweshwar Prasad (BP) Koirala, on Tuesday with separate events organized by rival party factions, highlighting deepening internal divisions and raising fresh concerns over a possible split.
BP Koirala, who died of throat cancer on July 22, 1982, is remembered for his policy of national reconciliation after returning from exile in 1976 to campaign for democracy and national unity following King Mahendra’s dismissal of his elected government in 1960.
The rival programs come months after a special general convention elected a new leadership despite opposition within the party, intensifying the power struggle between the establishment led by President Gagan Thapa and the faction aligned with former president Sher Bahadur Deuba and senior leader Dr. Shekhar Koirala.
The establishment faction organized a Grreen Run, a climate awareness change program on Tuesday under the party’s Policy Research and Training Academy, followed by the launch of a new party campaign on Wednesday. Vice President Bishwo Prakash Sharma announced the schedule at a press conference on Monday.
Meanwhile, the Deuba and Shekhar Koirala faction jointly hosted a memorial gathering at Nepal Academy under the theme, “Dialogue, Consensus and Unity: The Need of the Hour.”
The opposition faction has warned that chances of reconciliation within the party have become extremely slim after its leadership concluded that negotiations had nearly collapsed. It has proposed five conditions for unity, including integrating members elected under the 14th General Convention into the new central committee and updating party membership records digitally.
Chairman Gagan Thapa has publicly rejected the demands, saying he cannot accept conditions that fall outside the party statute or compromise decisions made by the special general convention.
Senior leader Min Bishwakarma said the possibility of unity now depends on whether the establishment accepts the faction’s proposals. Otherwise, he warned, the party could take “a different course.”
The decision to hold separate memorial events for BP Koirala, whose political legacy centered on reconciliation and national unity, has fueled concerns among party leaders and supporters that the day could instead symbolize a formal division within Nepal’s oldest democratic party.
People’s News Monitoring Service
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