National
Ruling party rules out re-election chances
A Central Secretariat meeting of the Nepal Communist Party (NCP) on Sunday decided not to accept the resignation tendered by Rambir Manandhar, a lawmaker who won the Kathmandu-7 federal parliament seat.Sanjeev Giri
A Central Secretariat meeting of the Nepal Communist Party (NCP) on Sunday decided not to accept the resignation tendered by Rambir Manandhar, a lawmaker who won the Kathmandu-7 federal parliament seat.
The meeting held at Baluwatar reached the conclusion after NCP leader Bam Dev Gautam, for whose sake Manandhar had decided to vacate the constituency, backtracked on his plan to contest the by-election.
“The Central Secretariat meeting came to a conclusion that there is no need for a decision over the resignation tendered by Manandhar,” NCP Spokesperson Narayan Kaji Shrestha said after the meeting on Sunday evening.
Shrestha added that senior leaders of the ruling party agreed that holding by-election in the Kathmandu constituency less than a year after the polls by making a sitting MP resign was unnecessary.
The general public, and cadres and leaders from the opposition as well as the governing parties came down heavily on the NCP leadership after Manandhar announced his resignation in the second week of October so that Gautam could run for the seat in a by-election. Gautam was defeated in Bardiya-1 in the federal parliamentary election held last year.
Negative feedback to the move in the Kathmandu constituency, hinting at a high possibility of Gautam’s defeat in the event of re-poll, as well as the reservations of some senior leaders including Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli forced Gautam to reconsider his decision, according to sources.
The meeting also decided to discuss the letter submitted by senior leader Madhav Kumar Nepal, expressing displeasure at the formation of party’s provincial committees, at the next Central Secretariat meeting scheduled for Tuesday. Nepal has opposed the decision taken by the secretariat to select those in charge of the party’s provincial committees, their deputies, chairpersons and secretaries of the committees in his absence.
While Prime Minister Oli was in New York for the United Nations General Assembly, Nepal hosted a tea party for Standing Committee members to put forth his views against the moves of the unified communist party.
According to Shrestha, the meeting also dwelt on the activities of the party and the government and further process to complete the unification between the erstwhile CPN-UML and the CPN (Maoist Centre) at the provincial and district levels.