KATHMANDU, March 18: A parliamentary party meeting of the ruling Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML) is taking place today.
Chairperson of the party, KP Sharma Oli, who is also the prime minister, called the party's parliamentary party meeting.
The meeting is being held at Baluwatar, the official residence of the prime minister, according to Bishal Bhattarai, a leader of the party who was recently designated as the party's chief whip.
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The meeting is starting shortly. "All the party leaders who won elections with the symbol ‘sun’ are invited to the meeting," Bhattarai said.
The meeting is taking place at a time when intraparty rift within the party is at its peak. Owing to the factional feud, the Madhav Kumar Nepal-led faction of the CPN-UML has decided to boycott the parliamentary party meeting called by the party.
UML lawmaker Surendra Pandey, who is close to the Nepal-led faction, said they will boycott the meeting. Lawmaker Pandey announced to boycott the meeting while addressing the national gathering of the leaders and cadres close to them at Heritage Garden in Sanepa.
The Nepal-led faction had earlier demanded that Chairman KP Oli withdraw his decision to unilaterally appoint 23 leaders belonging to the erstwhile CPN (Maoist Center) as central committee members of the party. The Nepal-led faction is miffed with the Oli-led faction after Chairman Oli stripped all leaders close to the Nepal-led faction off their party responsibilities.
The Nepal-led faction has already announced to form a parallel committee after Oli showed no sign of revoking the decision taken by the meeting that was not participated by any leaders close to the Nepal-led faction. As the Nepal-led faction organized a national gathering of the party cadres despite warning from Chairman Oli that those responsible for organizing the factional gathering will face disciplinary action, analysts say that the UML that was revived by the Supreme Court decision earlier last month has again reached the verge of a split.
