UML standing committee meet put off till Wednesday

BHAKTAPUR, March 24: A Standing Committee meeting of the CPN-UML scheduled for Tuesday was postponed until Wednesday for lack of internal preparations to that end.

Although party senior leader Jhalanath Khanal, Vice Chairpersons Bhim Rawal and Bidhya Bhandari and Secretary Pradip Gywali, among others, reached the party Chairman's KP Sharma Oli's residence at Balkot, where the meeting was set to take place, on time, the party leadership decided to postpone the meeting citing internal preparations.


A meeting has been set back till Wednesday, seeing the need of going through further internal discussions before sitting for the meeting, Standing Committee member Mukunda Neupane said.

Party General Secretary Ishwor Pokhrel was learnt to take views of the standing committee members one by one regarding the matters of portfolio division of party leaders, following the ruling from the party chairman.

He is expected to come up with inputs from members in the upcoming Standing Committee meeting. Party leaders will meet again at Oli's residence at 11:00 am tomorrow to finalize the matter.

At present time, the UML has been gripped by disputes over portfolio divisions of party leaders. Such disputes are expected to be settled soon, Neupane added.

A meeting was postponed as party Vice Chair and Home Minister Bamdev Gautam and Secretary Yogesh Bhattarai are currently out of the Kathmandu Valley and intra-party discussions regarding portfolio division are underway, Oli's personal secretary Rajesh Bajracharya said. The UML has sat for intra-party discussions at the chairman's residence at Balkot with a view to finalizing the issues of portfolio divisions since Sunday. However, party leader Madhav Kumar Nepal was not seen at Oli's residence for internal discussions. RSS

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