“All the Nepali people and the entire international community is for holding election in November but the recent statements of UCPN (Maoist) leaders show that they are trying to defer the polls,” said Khanal while addressing a gathering of the party´s wing Youth Federation Nepal (YFN) in Chitwan on Saturday.
During the function, Khanal and another CPN-UML leader KP Sharma Oli came down heavily on UCPN (Maoist).[break]
“CPN-UML is the party that took initiatives to bring the UCPN (Maoist) leaders into mainstream politics. We are ones who reached Siliguri, Lucknow and Delhi in India to bring them into mainstream politics,” he said. “We rescued the Maoists when they believed change is possible only through guns.”
He claimed that the Maoists, who claimed to be lions during the last CA elections, have turned into street dogs. Claiming that 10-year-long Maoist insurgency had no positive result, Khanal accused the Maoists of killing 15,000 people for nothing.
While applauding the party youth wing YFN´s decision to form Youth Force (YF) ahead of election, KP Sharma Oli said UML wouldn´t have faced humiliating defeat in the last election had the party formed YF.
“Last time, we won only 33 seats. But this time around we will not face such a situation as we have YF with the party,” said Oli. He argued that effective presence of YF during election had become necessary.
“YFN will muster 750,000 votes for UML”
Addressing the same function, YFN Chairman Mahesh Basnet claimed that the youth organization will muster 750,000 votes for the mother party.
“At least 200,000 youths from villages across the country and 50,000 from municipalities are going to join our organization. We can easily muster 750,000 votes for the party,” said Basnet.
The two-day youth gathering is aimed at reviving YF as an arm of YFN. Basnet said they decided to revive YF with a plan to mobilize youths at each polling booth across the country. The party had dissolved YF after it was widely criticized for its unruly activities.
YFN has planned to mobilize 500 youths in the capital, 200 in each district and 100 in each election constituency.
According to YFN General Secretary Rajiv Pahari, 776 representatives are participating in the gathering. He said senior leader Madhav Kumar Nepal and General Secretary Ishwar Pokharel are scheduled to address the closed-door session on Sunday.
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