UCPN (Maoist) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal and Vice-chairman Baburam Bhattarai welcomed Aryal and actress Rekha Thapa amidst a function organized at the party´s head office in Koteshwar. [break]
Aryal, who was a minister in the Jhalanath Khanal-led coalition, was chief of the party´s inclusion and security department. She accused the UML leadership of neglecting the genuine concerns of the lower class.
“The party ended the system of performance-based reward and punishment and democratic culture,” she told Republica. “I had to quit the party as the leadership neglected my concerns against ill practices in the party.”
Aryal joined UML immediately after the popular movement of 1990. Previously, she had worked together with Pushpa Kamal Dahal and CPN-Maoist Chairman Mohan Baidya in CPN (Masal).
Last month, UML politburo member Ram Chandra Jha had defected to the UCPN (Maoist.