Nepali Congress President and Parliamentary Party leader Sher Bahadur Deuba faces intense scrutiny from several quarters for his failure to abide by the party statute to give the Central Working Committee, departments and the parliamentary working committee their full shape two months after his ascendancy to the party helm, something reminiscent of the late party president Sushil Koirala.

According to Clause 19 of Article 49 of the party statute, all the nominations are supposed to be made within two months of the general Convention that concluded on March 7. Deuba is yet to nominate the party’s vice-president, general secretary, joint-general secretary, spokesperson, the remaining 14 seats in the Central Committee and heads of the party’s 44 departments. For Parliament, apart from giving the working committee its full shape, Deuba will also have to pick his party whips.

Leaders close to rival faction Ram Chandra Poudel criticised the leadership’s incompetency at keeping his promises of running the party as per the statute. “We fear that the party will once again be run in an ad hoc manner like Koirala,” said a CWC member on condition of anonymity. “Deuba, during the elections, had pledged to run the party in a systematic manner, but that has not been the case.”

Erstwhile president Koirala was also heavily criticised for his inability to act as per the party statute, taking nine months before nominating Krishna Prasad Sitaula as the general secretary and almost four years to give the CWC its full shape. Internal disputes made the party departments almost defunct.

NC Central Committee member Gururaj Ghimire said Deuba’s weakness on nominations had given continuity to the traditional ways of running the party. “This will give a very bad impression to the general public and invite problems among the cadres from the ground up to the top,” said Ghimire.

However, leaders close to the establishment were quick to point out that it was too early to draw comparisons with Koirala. “It is unfortunate that some of our leaders are creating unnecessary commotion regarding nominations. Koirala took ages to pick his nominees and in fact the Parliamentary Party committee never got its full shape during his tenure of over five and a half years,” said central member Prakash Sharan Mahat. He added that Deuba’s symbolic gesture in nominating defeated office bearer aspirants in the central committee was itself a sign that the leadership was not following the way of the former president.

Following the general convention, the party was engaged in holding its PP leader poll and subsequently electing its parliamentary working committee. Last month, Deuba embarked on a private visit to India for treatment of his wife and Member of Parliament Arzu Rana Deuba.

Meanwhile, Poudel and elected General Secretary Shashank Koirala took a long trip to the United States, preventing talks to seek consensus on the nominations.