After the disputes over selecting leadership of the lower committees continued to flare up, ruling Nepal Communist Party (NCP) co-chairman Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli and Pushpa Kamal Dahal have been given responsibility to resolve the issue.

As many as 50 percent of the lower committees of the party including sister wings have failed to finalise their leadership due to the disputes.

Two of the seven provinces—Province 1 and 2 have failed to select their leaderships while other provinces have recommended with multiple names for leadership.

“Around fifty percent of the lower committees have failed to forge agreement on the leadership which will be now finalised by the party’s Standing Committee,” said general secretary Bishnu Poudel adding that Oli and Dahal have began discussion on ways to settle the leadership issue.

The NCP Secretariat will discuss on ways to resolve the disputes on Sunday before taking the agenda to the Standing Committee.

The Standing Committee meeting scheduled for August 24-25 was postponed to September 4-5 after the disputes delayed the reports of the panels formed to finalise the leadership of the lower committees.

As the NCP was formed following merger between the UML and the Maoist Centre, there are disputes in many districts where former UML and Maoist Centre leaders are competing for leadership, said NCP sources.

Province 7 has named Karna Bahadur Thapa and Laxmi Joshi as chairman and secretary of province committee respectively.

In Province 5, two names have been proposed for province chairman post—Dal Bahadur Rana and Ganeshman Pun. While Rana belongs to former UML, Pun represents former Maoist Centre.

In Kathmandu, 130 leaders of Kathmandu district handed a memorandum to party General Secretary Poudel on Thursday, demanding that the unification process should follow due process forming a certain criteria.

Surendra Manandhar, member of five-member panel formed to merge the NCP’s Kathmandu district committee has opposed the report of his panel, claiming that he was not consulted.

Instead, Manandhar has forwarded another report proposing Sagar Nepal as the chairman of the party’s Kathmandu district committee. The panel had earlier recommended the name of Ram Sharan Dhungana as district chair.

“Kathmandu is just an example. Establishment faction of the former UML has selected only the leaders close to them for all the positions meant for UML throughout the nation,” Manandhar said.

Dissatisfied leaders of Lalitpur and Sindhupalchowk districts have also registered their discontent to the concerned task forces.

At Sindhupalchowk, leaders close to Oli have claimed that the other faction of the party submitted the list without consulting them.

Leaders of Arghakhanchi, Palpa and Dang of Province 5 have registered discontent over the recommendations at the party headquarters at Dhumbarahi claiming that they flouted the criteria issued by the party while selecting the leadership.