They argue that since the party´s three senior leaders -- Acting President Sushil Koirala, senior leader Sher Bahadur Deuba and parliamentary party leader Ram Chandra Poudel -- lack the necessary political stature needed to provide the joint leadership, a troika leadership in the NC is just talk for now. [break]
Party leaders say the idea of troika leadership in the NC is not practicable for now as the party has many other leaders of similar, and some of even higher, political stature as compared with Deuba, Koirala and Poudel.
NC Central Working Committee member Narahari Acharya said the concept of troika leadership is an obsolete one that the communists used in the past. "Nowhere does the concept of a troika exist as such," he said.
A majority of leaders maintain that a democratic party like the NC should not adopt a troika leadership and that one person should be entrusted with top leadership. "A party consists of not only senior leaders. Other members of the party also have an equal role in the taking of any party decisions," Acharya further said.
NC leaders Krishna Prasad Bhattarai, Ganesh Man Singh and Girija Prasad Koirala had jointly led the NC after BP´s demise in 2039 BS.
´Convention should decide leadership´
A majority of NC leaders maintain that the rift that surfaced between senior leader Deuba and Acting President Koirala over party leadership should be settled by holding the party´s 12th general convention at the earliest and the acting president should be allowed to handle party affairs till the convention is held.
Deuba and Koirala are lately at loggerheads over who should be at the helm of the party following the death of NC President GP Koirala.
While Deuba claims that he is the successor to the party president since he was second in number among NC leaders during the unification of his NC (Democratic) with the mother party some two years ago, Koirala maintains that as acting president he should get to head the party.
NC CWC member Narahari Acharya said, "The rift that reportedly surfaced between the two senior leaders has created a situation for us to exert pressure on the party to hold the convention at the earliest."
CWC member Manamohan Bhattarai argues that the acting president should get to head the party in the absence of the party president.
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