Maoist Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal has told party members that unification of the CPN (Maoist Centre) and the CPN-UML will be respectful and based on equality.

Speaking at a function organised to mark the 200th birth anniversary of Karl Marx in Pokhara on Saturday, Dahal said both the parties would be dissolved and a new communist force formed.

The former prime minister remembered the late Madan Bhandari, whose ideology has guided the ruling UML to this day, for his contribution while merging the then CPN (Marxist) and the CPN (ML). “Organisation of the Bhandari-led party was bigger and stronger. But he agreed to make [late] Manmohan Adhikari, chief of the Marxist faction, the party chairman, presenting him as the prime ministerial candidate,” said Dahal.

While he visited his birthplace in Annapurna Rural Municipality-1, Kaski, on Saturday, Dahal expressed his desire to build a house there. He was in search of a land plot for building a house. Dahal’s family migrated to Chitwan from Annapurna-1 when he was eight years old.