The Maoists are holding a politburo meeting beginning Thursday to chart out the party´s strategic move post May 28 -- the constitution-drafting deadline. [break]
Sources say Maoist Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal is likely to propose a review of the party´s current tactical line -- urban insurrection -- and show leniency for the peace process and constitution drafting.
"Now the chairman should either forge programs for a revolt, or he should swerve to the line of peace and constitution," says leader Ganga Shrestha who is close to Bhattarai.
The party faction led by Vice-chairman Dr Baburam Bhattarai seems confident that the party would change its track, but that is sure to raise the hackles of the hard-line camp led by Senior Vice-chairman Mohan Baidya, who says changing the party line at this juncture is next to impossible. "Such rumors are laughable; there is no point in changing the party line," says Maoist leader Khadga Bahadur Bishwakarma from the hard-line camp.
The leader, however, agrees that the party establishment has not brought out any program to implement the official line of revolt and that has made the road ahead more difficult.
"We would certainly raise the issue at the meeting," he says.
The official line of the party is to push for a ´people´s constitution´ and if the peaceful means fails, the party would launch an ´urban insurrection´ and capture state power.
Distance between Dahal and Baidya has widened in recent days. Despite the unity at the top, cadres close to Baidya and Dahal have been making serious allegations against each other and even brawling in the public. Due to their sharp differences over the allocation of ministries, the party has not been able to name new ministers as of Sunday.
´The alliance between Dahal and Baidya is unnatural and it is bound to break," says a leader close to Bhattarai. Ideologically, Dahal is close to Bhattarai, who is now pushing for CA term extension and promulgation of a constitution through compromises.
The Maoists have stated that they are holding the politburo meeting to forge a strategy to defeat ´conspiracy hatched by the counter-revolutionaries against the peace process and constitution drafting´.
Maoist leader Haribol Gajurel argues that the party would not change the line, but would certainly forge new political programs for peace and constitution.
"We would thrash out plans and programs for the completion of the peace process and constitution drafting. Otherwise the country would see the dissolution of the CA and a presidential rule," says Gajurel who is close to Dahal.
According to him, the party would use parliament, streets and the government to formulate a new constitution.
The Bhattarai faction has stated that it would demand change in party line at the politburo meeting, if the chairman fails to make any proposal for peace and constitution.
The party is currently reeling under an ideological dilemma and doesn´t have any political programs to mobilize the cadres.
Forging an alliance with Baidya, Dahal got his political document endorsed by the party central committee. The document states that the party would launch a ´revolt for peace and constitution´, which has been criticized by rival factions as eclecticism.
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