The central working committee of the NC instructed the Ram Chandra Paudel-led party policy and program drafting committee to come up with a revised draft before the next CWC meeting to be held on Saturday. A meeting of the drafting committee has been called for Friday to make the changes.
Most of the leaders came down heavily against the draft for lacking clear guidelines, failing to reflect the party's principle and manifesto and ignoring the provisions in the new constitution.
"Some leaders have demanded revisions while others have called for revamping the whole document," said NC leader Gagan Thapa emerging from the meeting at party's central office in Sanepa.
Among other things, the policy and program drafted by Poudel-led committee was flayed for failing to give due importance to Madhes movement, failing to identify future challenges for the party and proffering only surface-level explanations about the constitution and other sensitive issues.
NC Spokesman Dilendra Badu informed that altogether 15 central committee members had aired their comments on the draft.
NC leader Kamala Panta had criticized the committee for not discussing the draft even with the drafting committee members before presenting it to the party central committee.
Leaders Prakash Saran Mahat, Ramesh Rijal, Shankar Bhandari, Dhan Raj Gurung, among others, had demanded a revamp.
"The proposed policy and program will lead the party to nowhere as it puts entire focus of the party on elections and individual leaders rather than on policies and agendas," Gurung said at the meeting.
"Though the policy and program stresses the implementation of the new constitution, it fails to follow the spirit of the constitution and it is far removed from the party manifesto and guiding principle," criticized NC youth leader Sita Gurung.
Youth leaders have said that since many youths have succeeded to win the party leadership at local level during the recently held general convention of the party, the policy and program should assign suitable responsibility for them in the party.
NC youth leader Pradip Paudel had demanded redefining party's ideology in line with the changed global as well as internal context. "We are failing to redefine nationalism, democracy and other issues that fall under our party's ideology," said Paudel in the meeting.
Coordinator of the drafting committee and NC Acting President Ram Chandra Paudel assured the party central committee of revising the draft by accommodating all the suggestions.
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