NC lawmakers and Central Working Committee (CWC) members close to Deuba on Monday organized a meeting at the residence of party lawmaker Chakra Bahadur Thakuri at Jorpati to discuss strategies that the Deuba faction should take up to secure Deuba as the new prime minister from the party. [break]
NC sources claimed the ´lunch-meeting´ organized a day after Acting President Sushil Koirala hinted that he would not support Deuba as new prime ministerial candidate was undermined after Koirala himself asked Deuba not to make such a move. “Neither will this help you nor will it help the party,” the source quoted Koirala as saying. “Do stop this kind of activity.”
Koirala reportedly asked Deuba over phone not to believe in media reports and assured that the prime ministerial candidate would be picked by consensus in the party. NC sources said following the assurances senior leaders Deuba and Gopal Man Shrestha chose to skip the ´lunch meeting´.
During the CWC meeting on Sunday, Acting President Koirala had decided to shelve the issue of naming a prime ministerial candidate, saying that the candidate for a new prime minister from the party would be chosen as per the established norms and statute of the party. He took the decision despite pressure from CWC members supporting Poudel to finalize the new prime ministerial candidate from the party.
According to an NC leader, some 22 lawmakers as well as CWC members attended the ´lunch-meeting´ organized at the Thakuri residence.
NC General Secretary Bimalendra Nidhi, who attended the ´lunch-meeting´, dismissed reports that any such thing had transpired at the meeting. “It was purely a lunch party [called by Thakuri],” he said. “As an invitee I also attended it.”
NC insiders say though the move of the Deuba faction won´t precipitate a division of the party at least for now, it is certainly going to further worsen the intra-party rift that continues to exist even following the unification of the Nepali Congress and the Deuba-led NC Democratic.
NC leader Nara Hari Acharya said the move was a ´hurried response´ on the part of Deuba faction leaders to ´exaggerated media reports´ that the CWC meeting had picked PP leader Poudel as the new prime ministerial candidate. “This could be a strategic move made with a view to the upcoming general convention,” he said.
Acharya argued that it would have been much better had the dissenting leaders called a meeting of the parliamentary party to discuss their grievances.
koshraj@myrepublica.com
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