As Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli continues to have a tiff with CPN (Maoist Centre) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal over a so-called “gentleman’s agreement”, he is facing strong criticism from some senior leaders from his own party, in an indication that some sort of storm is brewing within the governing CPN-UML.

Irked by some statements from senior UML leaders Madhav Kumar Nepal and Jhala Nath Khanal, who have also called for reaching a new understanding, PM Oli said at a public function in the Capital on Friday that some leaders “from my own party have failed to understand what my government is doing.”

As per the “gentleman’s agreement”, said to have been signed on May 5 when the UML and Maoist Centre signed a nine-point deal to keep the coalition intact, Oli was supposed to hand over government leadership to Dahal after the tabling of the budget.

After the government tabled the budget in Parliament on May 28, conflicting claims have been made by Oli and Dahal, with the former saying there was no “gentleman’s agreement” and the latter saying such a deal indeed was reached.

Amid this, Nepal and Khanal have made some statements calling for reaching some sort of understanding to form a national unity government. Alleging that “some leaders from my own party are against the government”, PM Oli said at Friday’s function: “Forget other parties, I am struggling to manage my own party.”

During a function at the UML party headquarters on Friday, former prime minister Khanal said there should be some kind of understanding to implement the constitution for which “we need common national commitment”.

“We had agreed that there should be an understanding on implementation of the new constitution and we averted the political crisis at that time by agreeing to seek some kind of political understanding,” said Khanal without mentioning the “gentleman’s agreement”.

Nepal, who leads a faction within the UML, has earlier also accused Oli of taking decisions unilaterally.

According to senior UML leaders, PM Oli on Thursday had rung up Nepal and expressed his dismay at his “non-cooperation” to the incumbent government.

PM Oli told Nepal that at a time when the Nepali Congress and the Maoist Centre “are not in a position to oppose the government”, such strong opposition from own party leaders was becoming a matter of great concern, the UML leaders told the Post.

“The PM also told Nepal that he was weakening the government by making statements against the government stronger than those made by NC and Maoist leaders.”