The party leaders to argue along these lines were Barshaman Pun, Top Bahadur Rayamajhi, Haribol Gajurel, and Shakti Basnet.[break]
“The chairman should move ahead with the peace and constitution-drafting process with full confidence and without making compromises with anyone in the party,” a party leader quoted Pun as saying during the meeting.
Pun argued that the political paper presented by Senior Vice-chairman Mohan Baidya shows the latter’s fundamental ideological differences with the party establishment.
“If we had not taken the path of peace and constitution, we would long ago have been finished off. The line of Kiran [Baidya] will only lead to anarchy,” another party leader quoted Pun as saying.
Similarly, Gajurel had argued that the task of completing the peace and constitution-writing had now come upon the shoulders of the party.
“Why did we enter the Constituent Assembly (CA) if we were not for drafting the constitution,” another leader quoted Gajurel as saying.
Likewise, Shakti Basnet argued that the Baidya faction should either abide by party discipline or form a separate party.
The party leaders were of the opinion that Dahal should take disciplinary action against the Baidya faction for their “anarchism.”
On Wednesday, party General Secretary Ram Bahadur Thapa, who is close to Baidya, had stated that the party had already split and only awaited a formal announcement of this.
Maoist leader Ram Karki, who is close to Dahal, argued on the other hand that the party will not immediately split, given the make up of the radical faction that comprises leaders with diverse opinions about the course for the party.
“How can they (the radicals) form a separate political party with such dissimilar ideas,” yet another leader quoted Karki as saying.
Dharmendra Bastola, Hari Bhakta Kandel, Hitman Shakya and Pampha Bhusal had criticized Dahal for the latter’s ideological deviation.
Bastola argued that if the party chairman feels that he cannot advance the revolution, he should admit it openly.
According to the leaders, Kandel argued that the party had fallen into revisionism and needed to change its track. He also asked the CC members not to follow the leaders blindly, and to take sides with top leaders on the basis of the issues.
“What is there behind those smiles?”
Many central committee members stated that they were surprised by the way Dahal and Baidya smiled and whispered to each other during the meeting on Thursday. “Surprised by the way the two leaders behaved, we also began to whisper to each other,” said a CC member.
Dahal and Thapa have lately been in serious conflict with each other, and the latter has been publicly accusing Dahal of betraying the dream of revolution and being a “stooge of regressive, expansionist and imperialist forces”.
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