The dramatic turn of events that led to the withdrawal of CPN (Maoist Centre) from the government on Tuesday pushed the country once again into a sort of political vacuum.

While the Maoist leadership made sustained efforts to lead the government over the past several weeks, they played cards close to their chest—sending mixed signals about their commitment to pull out from the Oli government if they couldn’t succeed in extracting concessions they wanted—giving an impression to the CPN-UML that the former rebels had lost their leverage.

Events that unfolded on Monday ultimately paved the way for the Maoists to decide to pull out of the left coalition, which had been in the making for the last several weeks, several Maoist leaders told the Post.

As the party’s headquarters met on Monday at 9am to take a “decisive call”, the Maoists were still a divided house.

Party leaders in the government favoured a unity government, while others made a strong pitch for pulling out of the coalition government.

As a compromise, at 3pm on Monday, the party authorised its Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal to take the final decision.

Immediately after the meeting, Dahal met Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba to seek support for a government under his leadership.

Stung by Dahal’s betrayal in May, Deuba had categorically told Dahal last week to first withdraw from the government if he wanted NC’s support, according to leaders.

After Deuba’s assurance of support, Dahal held a private meeting with the Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli at 6pm where the latter was asked about his position on changing government leadership and three-point gentleman’s agreement which includes transfer of power and addressing Maoist concerns on transitional justice.

Dahal reiterated his priority to find a consensus-based solution within the current coalition, but dropped no hints of NC’s assurances, according to Maoist leaders.

With PM Oli refusing to give in, Dahal finally made up his mind to withdraw, which was endorsed by Tuesday’s meeting of party’s nine-member headquarters.