The meeting that began Sunday ended abruptly Wednesday after holding a debate on whether the party should take action against Vice-chairman Dr Baburam Bhattarai for his recent interview to a vernacular daily. [break]
In the interview, Bhattarai had stated that it is still possible to conclude the peace process and constitution drafting and the party should genuinely push for these, adding that Puspa Kamal Dahal and Senior Vice-chairman Mohan Baidya no longer had faith in the current political process and wanted to break it off completely.
Maoist Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal has argued that the party´s tactical line of “people´s revolt” is likely to fail as Bhattarai spilled the beans in the media, and that the party must take disciplinary action against him.
Party insiders say Chairman Dahal ended the meeting and called a Central Committee (CC) meeting when his bid to take action Bhattarai failed as some influential party hardliners including Netra Bikram Chand had thrown their weight behind Bhattarai.
“After the alliance between Baidya and Dahal was forged, the chairman hoped he would get our support to take action against Bhattarai. But we were never for that,” says a leader close to the Baidya faction.
On December 18, the party Central Committee (CC) had referred the contentious organizational and tactical issues to the Standing Committee, but Dahal again called the CC meeting without having deliberated those issues.
“His design is to take action against Bhattarai after garnering enough support from party leaders, but we will foil his design,” says a senior Maoist leader close to Bhattarai.
Relations between Bhattarai and Dahal soured after the Khanna garment episode in which Dahal told cadres during a closed-door meeting that Bhattarai was the person chosen by India for the post of prime minister.
And after Bhattarai presented a separate political document at the CC held prior to the recent Palungtar plenum and at the plenum itself, relations between the two became further strained. On December 18, Dahal got his document endorsed with the backing of Senior Vice-chairman Mohan Baidya, and this meant further isolation for Bhattarai. With the chairman seeking disciplinary action against Bhattarai, the acrimonious relations between the two leaders seem to have reached a tipping point.
How is one to explain these growing differences between the two leaders? It seems Dahal feels his leadership has been challenged by Bhattarai, but he is more comfortable with Baidya, who is more interested in Marxist philosophy than party leadership. And after adopting Baidya´s line of “people´s revolt”, Dahal now seems more confused than ever. If he doesn´t launch a people´s revolt he will be questioned by Baidya, and if he does launch one, the revolt is not likely to succeed, which will lead to the popularity of Bhattarai´s line among the party rank and file.
The Bhattarai camp is busy forging its strategy to counter Dahal. “What we want is to defeat the chairman politically and we will then naturally have a hold on the organization,” says a leader close to Bhattarai.
According to party leaders, Dahal´s strategy is to not let Bhattarai hold any debate on ideological issues, and Bhattarai vehemently opposes that. The chairman doesn´t want to project himself as a hardliner, which will seriously undermine his prospects of becoming prime minister. And public debate on party lines launched by the Bhattarai camp will do just that.
The last CC had decided that Bhattarai would be allowed to launch such debates only through a magazine called Bichardhara, but Bhattarai has argued that he would obey the decision only after the party launches the publication. Now Dahal wants clarifications from Bhattarai for his interview and to “bring him down to his real size”.
"The chairman wants to stifle our voice, but we will not let that happen,” says a leader close to Bhattarai. With the support of influential hardliners including Chand, CP Gajurel and Khadga Bahadur Viswokarma, among others, Bhattarai seems confident that Dahal will not be able to take action against him. “If he does take action, it will only backfire,” says the leader without elaborating. Whether or not Dahal succeeds in taking action against Bhattarai, he is likely to give it a try at the upcoming CC meeting.
Instead of charting out an immediate policy on the post-UNMIN peace process, constitution drafting and integration and rehabilitation of combatants, the Maoist party has been referring these issues back and forth -- from the Central Committee (CC) to the plenum, from the plenum to back to the CC, from CC to Standing Committee, and from Standing Committee to CC again. This means the party has reached a stage of indecisiveness due to intra-party differences and clash of personalities.
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