Standing Committee meeting scheduled for Friday not to be deferred

KATHMANDU, July 16: The intra-party dispute within the ruling Nepal Communist Party (NCP) has shown no sign of abetting after the rival factions led by Executive Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal and senior leader Madhav Kumar Nepal asked Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli to step down from the post of the country’s top executive.

Sources close to the top NCP leaders said the intra-party dispute is likely to grow further as Prime Minister Oli has rejected the demand of Dahal and Nepal outright during a meeting touted to be the ‘decisive’ one to settle the intra-party row that has troubled the ruling NCP for the past few months. Prime Minister Oli has, according to sources, also challenged both Dahal and Nepal to “do whatever you can” during the meeting held at his official residence in Baluwatar on Thursday afternoon.

The sources said Dahal and Nepal had asked Prime Minister Oli to step down as he had failed both in political and diplomatic fronts due to his unwarranted remarks. The leaders had made reference to his recent remarks on the birthplace of Lord Ram and his remarks related to India in parliament.

A senior NCP leader said although the top leaders failed to reach any consensus, there has been an agreement not to defer the Standing Committee meeting that has been postponed a number of times already in the past few weeks. The Standing Committee, where Dahal and Nepal command majority votes, is scheduled for Friday.

As the rival factions have shown no sign of burying the hatchet, there are fears among second and third-rung leaders within the NCP that any decision taken on the basis of majority votes through the Standing Committee meeting against Oli could push the party toward a split.

NCP Central Committee member Bishnu Rijal said that the top leaders of the party should exercise maximum flexibility to settle the intra-party disputes through consensus even as the party’s statute allows settling the disputes through majority votes.

]“It is not too late already. The unification [of the party] was made possible by the leaders. The way parents do not have rights to harm their own children, the leaders also do not have the right to harm the unity of the party,” Rijal wrote on his facebook post after the Baluwatar meeting ended inconclusively.

 
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