Miscellaneous
Row in RPP threatens merger deal
While top leaders of three right-wing parties are engaging in serious dialogue for a merger, second-rung leaders from the Rastriya Prajantra Party, the largest of the three, are against its Chairman Kamal Thapa demanding that he correct his ‘unilateral’ working style.Binod Ghimire
While top leaders of three right-wing parties are engaging in serious dialogue for a merger, second-rung leaders from the Rastriya Prajantra Party, the largest of the three, are against its Chairman Kamal Thapa demanding that he correct his ‘unilateral’ working style.
The second-rung leaders, including the vice-chairmen of the party which has one seat in the federal parliament, are said to be working on to find an alternative to Thapa in the RPP hotseat. Having vested power in a select group of people close to him, according to the disgruntled leaders, the party chairman has been disregarding other leaders in the decision making process.
Vice-chairmen trio Buddhiman Tamang, Tanka Dhakal and Dil Bikash Rajbhandari, along with around a dozen office bearers, are in talks to call a parallel meeting of party cadres to press Thapa to correct his working style. “There are differences on various issues. We want the party leadership to make amends,” said a vice-chairman, requesting anonymity out of fear of reprisal. He said they would give the chairman some time to correct himself and run the party based on spirit of its statute. The differences within the RPP come as a serious blow at a time when Thapa is intensifying negotiations with chairman of RPP (Prajatantrik) Prakash Chandra Lohani and chief of Unified RPP (Nationalist) Pashupati Shumsher Rana for unification. Following ideological differences within the RPP, Lohani and Rana had parted ways with Thapa last year forming two separate parties. The three parties, which went their separate ways in the elections last year, failed to garner respectable votes.
The leaders in Thapa’s party blame him for promoting factionalism and denying responsibilities to those outside of his ‘coterie’.
A number of senior leaders have left Thapa over the years, blaming him for not respecting dissenting voices within the party. Keshar Bahadur Bista had quit the RPP-Nepal as its co-chair, accusing Thapa of centralising power. Similarly, dissatisfied with Thapa’s working style, another senior leader Padma Sundar Lawati went on to form another party.