The Ministry of Home Affairs (MoHA) has directed police to remain vigilant about the activities of the Netra Bikram Chand-led Communist Party of Nepal (CPN) in view of its plans to foil local level elections slated for May 14. 

During a meeting of the district security committee led by the chief district officer, the ministry directed Nepal Police to keep a watchful eye on leaders and cadres of the party. 

In MoHA’s integrated security plan, Chand’s CPN has been listed as a security threat for elections. 

CPN leaders have announced that they will stage protests against the elections and directed its district in-charges “to carry out the plan accordingly”.

“We have our own people’s government; we object to the elections declared for May 14,” said Khadga Bahadur BK, spokesperson for the party. “We won’t let the elections happen.”  He added that the party would run a nationwide campaign from April 18 “to create awareness among the people against the elections and foil them”.

MoHA officials said the government would take a zero tolerance policy on anti-election campaigns.

“Anti-election elements will not be spared,” said Bal Krishna Panthee, spokesperson for MoHA. “If the situation demands, we will arrest them [CPN cadres] and take necessary action.”

Recently, two cadres of Chand’s party were arrested for their alleged involvement in killing of Rabindra Shumsher Shah, a Nepali Congress leader, in Jajarkot. Although the killing is not linked to the upcoming local elections, parties in the district have sought additional security for the campaigns. 

MoHA officials, during multiple election security briefings, have directed the heads of Nepal Police and the Armed Police Force to remain alert and act accordingly 

to thwart anti-election campaigns by the CPN. 

Chand had announced his own party in December 2014 after leaving the CPN-Maoist led by Mohan Baidya, saying that Baidya is “not capable of leading the party and taking the class struggle forward”. Its name was CPN Maoist then but the name was changed to CPN only recently.

Chand, a firebrand leader of the Maoist movement in Nepal, who believes that the mother Maoist party and its leaders, including Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal who once led the decade-long armed struggle against the state, have deviated from the “party ideology”, is of the view that “Maoist revolution is yet to complete”.

He has been continuously making a pitch for yet another armed struggle.