Factionalism hits Maoist party wing conventions

KATHMANDU, Jan 27: After witnessing growing factionalism in the general conventions of its student and peasant wings two months back, the UCPN (Maoist) has put off the general conventions of the rest of its sister organizations, which together number 39.



While the party had struggled hard to give full shape to the All Nepal National Independent Students Union-Revolutionary (ANNISU-R) central committee, All Nepal Peasants´ Association (ANPA) has not even been able to appoint office bearers for the last two months, with competition among rival factions giving rise to an atmosphere of distrust and suspicion.[break]



The party is vertically divided into three factions led by Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal, Senior Vice-chairman Mohan Baidya and Vice-chairman Dr Baburam Bhattarai respectively.



ANNISU-R has now appointed 14 secretaries in its 103-member central committee.



“We formed the jumbo committee not because of factionalism but because we wanted to strengthen the party´s political line of people´s revolt and the student movement as well,” said Bina Magar, ANNISU-R secretariat member.



Chitra Bahadur Shrestha from the Dahal faction was elected chairman of the ANPA from its Nepalgunj conference held on November 12-14. However, the CC failed to nominate other office bearers as Baidhya faction leaders objected to names proposed by the Dahal faction. The Maoist standing committee has taken over this task.



“As the standing committee has taken over the task of nominating the office bearers, we hope we will get them within a week,” said Shrestha. Likewise, faction in-charge Bhim Prasad Gautam said preparations were underway and added that nominations will be done at the earliest.



Dhan Bahadur Maharjan, who is close to the Bidhya faction, said “We will accept the decision of the party standing committee.”



The Baidhya faction had proposed Nanda Bahadur Budha Magar for the post of ANPA general secretary. However, the Dahal faction included the names of its own people for all the posts, rejecting the proposal on Magar.



Party insiders claim that negotiation has been going on to create the positions of six vice-chairmen and three secretaries to be distributed equally among the three factions.



Shrestha said the conventions of the party´s sister organizations have been briefly postponed to implement the party´s political line. However, party sources said the conventions were postponed in view of the possibility of untoward incidents due to the ongoing dispute.



ANPA has elected 195 central committee members. Almost all the CCs of Maoist sister organizations have not less than 100 members.



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