Leaders of the main opposition Nepali Congress have agreed to increase the number of officer bearers and members of its Central Working Committee in what is considered to be a temporary truce between the rival factions in  the party.

The two factions led by President Sher Bahadur Deuba and senior leader Ram Chandra Poudel reached an understanding to increase  the number of office bearers at its 14th General Convention at an informal meeting held at the party headquarters in Sanepa on Sunday evening.

Earlier in the day, the rival factions held separate meetings to draw up a common position at the residences of Deuba and party’s former general sec-retary Prakashman Singh.

Subsequently, a committee under party’s General Secretary Purna Bahadur Khadka has been tasked with preparing the new draft of the NC charter in line with federal setup. The proposed draft will be first presented at the party’s Central Working Committee scheduled to begin on Monday.  Once approved by the CWC, the draft charter will then be tabled for approval at the Mahasamiti meeting beginning on Saturday.  

If the Mahasamiti meeting approves the agreement, the party will have two vice-presidents, three general secretar-ies and four joint general secretaries and a treasurer from the next general convention. “Deuba and Poudel have tentatively agreed on that,” said an NC leader after Sunday’s meeting.

At present, the Congress has one party president and vice-president each, two general secretaries, one treasurer and joint general secretary each. But the leaders have yet to deter-mine how many of the office bearers will be elected and how many nominat-ed by the party president.

Informed sources hinted that elec-tions will be held to pick one of the two vice-presidents, two out of three gener-al secretaries and three out of four joint general secretaries, and the party president will nominate one candidate in each of those positions.

“Top leaders have agreed to increase the size of office bearers and members of the central working committee,” said NC Spokesperson Bishow Prakash Sharma. Nabindra Raj Joshi, who is considered close to Poudel, told the Post that the size of the office bearers and central working committee would be increased but some issues needed to be resolved before the Mahasamiti meeting. Apart from the size of party’s provincial committee and mode to elect its member, most of the outstanding issues have been resolved, according  to Joshi.   

The two sides have also agreed to expand the size of the Central Working Committee, from the current 88 to around 141.

“We have to accommodate various clusters in the new setup as envisioned in the party’s statute. So, the size of the Central Working Committee will increase, but it will not exceed 141,” said Spokesperson Sharma.

Earlier, the Deuba faction had refused to expand the office bearers and the CWC. But he reluctantly agreed to do so after top leaders like  party General Secretary Shashank Koirala, Krishna Prasad Sitaula and youth leader Gagan Thapa, among oth-ers, threw their weight behind the Poudel faction.