The chairman has strengthened his grip with the backing of General Secretary Ram Bahadur Thapa and some other leaders who strongly support his leadership in the CC. [break]
“We have diverse ideals and opinions. But we should not forget that he (Dahal) is the all-acceptable leader in the party,” a central member quoted Thapa as saying at the CC meeting.
Thapa was among other leaders commenting on the three separate political documents presented by Dahal, Senior Vice-chairman Mohan Baidya and Vice-chairman Dr Baburam Bhattarai.
For quite some time, Thapa, who has a good hold in the central committee, had been maintaining a neutral position.
The Maoist CC meeting, which began on Wednesday, saw sharp ideological divisions and personality clashes with the presentation of the separate political documents by the two senior leaders.
Baidya, who leads a hard-line camp, has the organizational strength to compete with Dahal, but he enjoys just being an ideologue, and accepts Dahal´s leadership, though not whole-heartedly. Bhattarai remains comparatively weaker than Dahal and Baidya.
“Baidya is rather for dragging the party along his line,” said a senior Maoist leader. He is said to be a “classic communist” and has been pushing for an immediate revolt to seize state power.
Many leaders in Baidya´s camp also show loyalty to either Dahal or Bhattarai and that sometimes makes his position difficult to understand.
Similarly, Bhattarai, who is pushing staunchly for completion of the peace process and constitution-drafting, is not strong enough to challenge Dahal´s leadership. Worse, his lieutenants Barshaman Pun and Janardan Sharma have switched to the Dahal camp recently.
And the latest "interference by the Indian embassy” in the prime ministerial race has enabled Dahal to draw considerable support for his “nationalism campaign”, rendering him stronger.
The fact that he has been at the helm for the last 19 years underscores his power and influence in the party. “Dahal also controls the party funds and that has enabled him to remain strong, despite his other weaknesses,” observes a central leader.
Meanwhile, the Maoist party is likely to wrap up current discussions on the three separate political documents of the top three leaders and concentrate on the issue of government formation.
“There is now near consensus among the leaders that all three documents will be presented at the plenum, which is likely to be held in November,” said another leader.
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