According to a politburo member present at the meeting, Oli, Khanal´s rival in the party, demanded that the chairman´s report be withdrawn. "The report is more like a document presented by one faction instead of something prepared by the chairman of the party," the member quoted Oli as saying.
In his political report presented at the party´s ongoing politburo meeting, Khanal had pointed out the government´s failure to reach any agreement with the UCPN (Maoist) and forge a national consensus.
Despite the fact that the government is headed by senior UML leader Nepal, Chairman Khanal is lobbying for forming a national unity government with Maoist participation.
At the meeting, Prime Minister Nepal´s emphasis was on party unity. He suggested that the chairman take the initiative to strengthen party unity through dialogue among the leaders. The prime minister also urged the party leadership to make a realistic evaluation of the government. "Make an objective evaluation of the government. State categorically what are the things the government could do and what are the things in which the party has failed to deliver," a leader quoted the prime minister as saying.
In his political paper, Khanal argued that the UML needs to be ready to make a ´sacrifice´ for the sake of national consensus. The portion of Khanal´s report mentioning the ´sacrifice´ was the most criticized by a majority of members. They demanded clarification by the chairman if he wanted to suggest that the party leaders step down from the government to pave the way for the Maoists to lead it.
Both Nepal and Oli were for bravely facing the Maoists and exposing the former rebels´ wrongful activities. "The UML should not remain a mute spectator while the Maoists give continuity to their wrongful activities," they said.
UML Secretary Poudel termed the report meaningless. He claimed that the report had neither an objective nor any goal.
However, a UML leader who is close to Khanal said that the criticisms of the report were biased. He said it is meaningless to demand withdrawal of the report as there is no past record of the party head making such a withdrawl. "A report can be corrected as it is a document presented for discussion and suggestions are expected from members. Correction is not a big deal but a suggestion to withdraw the report is meaningless," the party leader said.
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