PM Oli to visit Kimathanka on Wednesday as Dahal calls NCP Secretariat meeting without his consent

KATHMANDU, Nov 10: Prime Minister KP Oli is visiting the Kimathanka area on Wednesday even as his party’s Executive Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal has called a Secretariat meeting without his consent.

According to Prime Minister Oli’s Press Adviser Surya Thapa, Prime Minister Oli is scheduled to inspect the recently-established Border Observation Post (BOP) of Armed Police Force (APF) in Kimathanka that lies at the border with the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) of China.

Prime Minister Oli is also scheduled to inspect the progress made in the construction of the Arun III Hydropower Project being developed with Indian investment and the Khandbari-Kimathanka road project. Both these projects are considered game-changers for Nepal. The 362-kilometer long Biratnagar-Khandbari-Kimathanka road is the shortest route to connect India and China via eastern Nepal.

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Thapa said the prime minister will be accompanied by a few ministers and lawmakers hailing from that region. Sources said Home Minister Ram Bahadur Thapa, Finance Minister Bishnu Paudel, and Deputy Prime Minister Ishwar Pokharel are likely to accompany the prime minister.

Asked if any formal programs are also scheduled during the visit, Thapa said no such formal programs are scheduled yet.

Prime Minister Oli has avoided traveling outside the Kathmandu Valley since he underwent kidney transplant for the second time earlier in March. His visit to Kimathanka on Wednesday will be his first visit outside the Kathmandu Valley since March.

Prime Minister Oli’s visit to Kimathanka comes at a time when the intra-party rift within the ruling Nepal Communist Party (NCP) has reached its peak. Executive Chairman Dahal has called the party’s Secretariat meeting on Tuesday afternoon without Oli’s consent as the latter did not call a meeting of the crucial party body even as the two-day deadline given to him to do so expired on Monday. 

A Secretariat member said he has already received notice about the Secretariat meeting scheduled for Wednesday. Oli earlier had said that the decision to call a meeting of the party committees without his consent would mark the beginning of the split of the party.