“Koirala met him in private and made the offer yesterday to encourage him to hand over weapons to the state,” said a senior NC leader.[break]
But Dahal told Koirala that he was not in a position to do so due to internal party dynamics and tried to assure the latter that he would complete the peace process soon. He also requested Koirala to understand his difficulties and asked him to be lenient on the NC’s demand for weapons handover
Surprisingly, this afternoon Dahal told Prime Minister Jhalanath Khanal that he should be ready to resign. “Since the NC and the leaders from your own party UML -- Madhav Kumar Nepal and KP Sharma Oli -- want you to go, you may have to resign,” Dahal told Khanal, according to sources close to the prime minister. PM Khanal subsequently shared what Dahal told him with the NC and UML leaders.
It’s not clear why Dahal told Khanal that he might have to resign but leaders argue that there could be three possible reasons.
First, Dahal sees a possibility of a deal tomorrow on arms handover and in that case also a possibility of other parties accepting him as the next prime minister. “So Dahal may have tried to mentally prepare Prime Minister Khanal for resignation.”
Second, Dahal could be trying to scare the prime minister so that he would feel obliged to the former if Dahal stands behind him tomorrow.
Third, Prime Minister Khanal and Dahal could be planning to impose a state of emergency but were trying to distract the attention of leaders by talking of prime minister’s resignation.
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