National
Dahal and ministers slam ‘unilateral’ Oli
While Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli is away on a three-day visit to India, leaders and minister from his coalition partner CPN (Maoist Centre) have expressed discontent over his working style.Tika R Pradhan
While Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli is away on a three-day visit to India, leaders and minister from his coalition partner CPN (Maoist Centre) have expressed discontent over his working style.
Contrary to his earlier statement that the Maoist Centre was preparing for a formal announcement of its merger with CPN-UML on April 22, Maoist Centre Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal told reporters on Saturday that PM Oli has been working ‘unilaterally’ without consulting with him.
The new twist in the relationship between the two communist parties, Maoist Centre leaders claim, may affect the ongoing unification process.During an interaction with office bearers of the Press Centre Nepal affiliated to the party at his residence in Khumaltar on Saturday morning, Dahal said, “PM Oli did not consult him when he decided to centralise power at the Prime Minister’s Office, including the National Investigation Department.”
Dahal told journalists the Maoist Centre had proposed to the Party Unity Co-ordination Committee that chairpersons of both parties should sign all the decisions of the unified party. Dahal has discussed this proposal with his party leaders. Maoist Centre has taken a strong position on the use of the phrase ‘people’s war’ in the new outfit’s statute claiming the armed conflict achieved all political goals.
PM Oli’s unilateral decision to reshuffle 30 of 48 secretaries, before he left for India, without consulting them has further irked the Maoist Centre ministers.“Even acting Prime Minister Ishwor Pokhrel was in dark about the transfer of the secretary of his Defence Ministry,” said a Maoist minister, expressing serious concern over the PM’s decision taken without holding a cabinet meeting.
Sources claimed that Home Minister Ram Bahadur Thapa, who is leading the party’s ministers in the Oli’s cabinet, has expressed reservations on the issue and had called a meeting of Maoist ministers last evening.
Thapa expressed his discontent to party Chairman Dahal on Saturday. Dahal has agreed to raise this issue to PM Oli when he returns from India on Sunday.
During his meeting with journalists, Dahal clarified his party will not go for unification without equal share in the central committee though all other lower committees might not include the leaders of both the parties in equal ratio.