Valley
NC group begins consultations for party reform
A team of Nepali Congress leaders held discussions with senior leaders of the party on Sunday to solicit their views, as part of their “party rebuilding” campaign through leadership transformation.A team of Nepali Congress leaders held discussions with senior leaders of the party on Sunday to solicit their views, as part of their “party rebuilding” campaign through leadership transformation.
Youth leaders held discussions with senior leader Ram Chandra Poudel, General Secretary Shashank Koirala, and leaders Prakash Man Singh and Ram Sharan Mahat, seeking their suggestions on their campaign.
Nabindra Raj Joshi, Kamala Panta, Deepak Giri, Ram Krishna Yadav, Dhanaraj Gurung, Govinda Bhattarai, Sarita Prasai, Jiwan Pariyar, Kalyan Gurung and Badri Pandey are among the leaders working to prepare a vision paper on party rebuilding. Earlier, they held consultations with intellectuals close to the NC.
In Monday’s meeting, senior leader Poudel said he was ready to give up his position to reform the party if other senior leaders also take retirement from active politics. The new generation of leaders is pressing their seniors to hand over the reins to them but party President Sher Bahadur Deuba has dismissed the call.
Youth leaders are also preparing to meet Deuba to deliver their message. The group will solicit suggestions also from other senior leaders. In the meeting, leaders blamed internal feud and mismanagement for the party’s poll debacle.
According to Central Working Committee (CWC) member Joshi, top leaders pledged their support to the campaign. The meeting discussed causes of the party’s humiliating defeat in the recently concluded elections to the federal parliament and provincial assemblies. “We’ll meet all the senior leaders of the party before finalising our document,” said Joshi, who leads the drafting of a concept paper on reforming the party organisation.
Besides, leaders are working to reshape the party’s ideology, and social and economic policies, among others. “We are also preparing a strategy for dealing with the rise of communist forces that have consolidated under the banner of left alliance,” said Joshi. Revamping the organisational structure and implementing the party’s statute are also on the agenda of youth leaders.
In the meeting, leaders close to senior leader Poudel underlined the need for restructuring two key decision-making bodies—the Central Executive Committee (CEC) and the Parliamentary Board. CWC is a body entrusted with urgent decisions in the absence of the CWC. The Parliamentary Board selects candidates during elections.
According to Joshi, some leaders have spoken for running the crucial bodies systematically in line with the party statute. The Poudel faction complains that the bodies are dominated by leaders close to the party president.