Nepali Congress leaders have a lot on their plates—constitution amendment, local body restructuring, three layers of elections, government’s performance and their internal party discourse—as they sit together for the first time in more than three months during their central working committee meeting on Thursday.

Since the last time the central body met when the largest party in Parliament decided to extend support to Pushpa Kamal Dahal, the Congress has faced several impediments-regarding the overall political situation of the country as well as their intra party rifts.

A major coalition partner in the government that was formed under the pretext to make the new constitution acceptable to a broader population by tabling an amendment proposal and hold three layers of elections-local, state and central-within the next 15 months or so as stipulated by the statute, party leaders acknowledged the need of the hour to stick to their commitments. 

“As prime minister stated at the Parliament today, we look forward to tabling an amendment proposal before Chatth festival,” said central committee member Chin Kaji Shrestha. 

“But we also understand that we have to take into confidence the main opposition CPN-UML since passing the proposal requires two-thirds of parliamentarians. Nepali Congress will have to take the lead,” added the chief whip of the party.

Local body restructuring before holding local level elections to move ahead with the constitution implementing process is another bone of contention the party faces. Despite the fact that the Local Body Restructuring Commission and the three major parties reached an agreement to use Ilakas (unit areas) as one of the bases to carve out local units, the ministry of local development and the commission continue to trade barbs at one another for slowing the pace of the restructuring process.     The LLRC, which has till mid-November to submit its report, is likely to fix the number of local units at 700, but faces a tough ask to start work all over again after earlier proposing to carve about 565 units. 

Some leaders have suggested to conduct local level polls under the existing structure to avert any more delays. “The government has already committed itself to hold local polls around March next year. But since there are quite a few obstacles, with the Madhes-based forces urging the government to halt the process of local body restructuring to first amend the statute,” said Shrestha.

Leaders have also raised concerns of the performance of ministers representing their party. Some have alleged Dahal of planning to dristribute billions of rupees from the state coffers in the name of conflict era victims through the ministry of peace, while some have objected to the home ministries plans of giving blanket amnesty to perpetrators of the Tikapur in which seven security personnel and a two-year-old baby were killed during protests.

Internally, the party president is yet to give the central working body its full shape. Sher Bahadur Deuba still has to nominate his vice president, general secretary, joint general secretary and a party spokesperson. Over 40 party departments remain vacant as well. The NC also looks to hold the general convention of its youth organisation, Tarun Dal, in a month. 

“Nominations are very unlikely at this point of time. Apart from that, we will also discuss on revamping our organisation in accordance to the federal structure of seven states,” he added.