The party establishment held the CWC meeting, the first since the last meeting in September, despite a call from the Deuba faction to postpone it for a few days so as to have time to settle the dispute over the dissolution of the central working committee of Nepal Tarun Dal, Nepal Women´s Association, Adibasi Janjati Sangh and Prajatantra Senani Sangh. [break]
Taking the boycott seriously, party President Sushil Koirala issued an appeal to Deuba and his supporters for unity, asking them to attend regular meetings and programs of the party.
“It is natural for a party to have occasional differences in a democracy,” Koirala said, “It is necessary to resolve such differences through mutual consultations and discussions. And if that does not happen, such differences should be settled through appropriate procedures.”
Despite the boycott by the Deuba camp, the meeting briefly discussed the regular agendas of the meeting -- extension of the Constituent Assembly term and the peace process.
The meeting was scheduled to take place at 1 pm but it was held nearly six-and-a-half hours later as there were only 37 members, four short of the required quorum for the meeting.
The establishment faction had waited for the arrival of four members, including Sujata Koirala, who are out of Kathmandu. In the 71-member central committee, 30 members are with Deuba.
The meeting did not take any decision due to absence of the party leaders from the Deuba faction. “No decision was taken as we want to take any decision through consensus from them [Deuba faction],” said Prakash Man Singh, general secretary of the party. “We will discuss the agendas in the next meeting on Friday.”
The sister organizations were dissolved by the establishment faction in September despite opposition from the Deuba camp. Deuba has been demanding reinstatement of the dissolved sister organizations. Unhappy over the dissolution, Deuba had even resigned from the CWC but Koirala recently refused to accept his resignation.
Koirala, issuing a statement, also reiterated his pledge that he would run the party on the basis of consensus and give space to all in the party and promised to settle all the problems.
Earlier in the morning, the Deuba faction had held its meeting and decided to boycott the meeting after their collective call to postpone the meeting was ignored by Koirala.
“There is no point in attending the meeting until the decision on the dissolution of the sister organizations is rectified,” said Purna Bahadur Khadka, a CWC leader close to Deuba.
Leaders in the party establishment have taken strong exception to the decision of the Deuba camp.
“It is an irresponsible act on their part to boycott the meeting called to discuss serious issues like extension of the Constituent Assembly term and state restructuring,” said CWC member Dr Shekhar Koirala.
Leaders like Arjun Narsingh KC had tried to convince both Koirala and Deuba to work toward forging consensus. KC had asked Koirala to postpone the meeting while asking Deuba not to boycott the meeting. Even Koirala invited Deuba to attend the meeting.
“This will further widen the rift besides sending a wrong message to the people,” said KC.
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