Valley
Outstanding issues of merger will be resolved on Thursday: Ruling party
Nine months after the party’s announcement that the unification process would be completed in three months, the ruling Nepal Communist Party’s secretariat has decided to finalise the remaining tasks on Thursday.Tika R Pradhan
Nine months after the party’s announcement that the unification process would be completed in three months, the ruling Nepal Communist Party’s secretariat has decided to finalise the remaining tasks on Thursday.
After the fourth task force led by Home Minister Ram Bahadur Thapa also failed to resolve the outstanding issues of unification, the party’s secretariat meeting at Baluwatar on Monday decided to resolve the issues on Thursday jointly with the members of the task force. “As the report presented by the task force was incomplete, we decided to resolve the issues holding a joint meeting with its members on Thursday,” said senior leader party Jhala Nath Khanal.
After the erstwhile CPN-UML and CPN (Maoist Centre) decided to merge on May 17 last year, the unified NCP has formed its central committee, standing committee and secretariat but is yet to finalise other lower committees besides the politburo that stands on top of the central committee.
The meetings of the fourth task force had been obstructed due to disputes on finalising the controversial provincial committees, preventing the panel from entering into other issues of the unification process. The Madhav Nepal-led faction in the party has demanded that the provincial committees induct 10 percent more
members while pressing the leadership to strictly follow a one-leader-one-responsibility rule.
Leaders in the Nepal faction were riled after Chief Ministers Prithvi Subba Gurung of Gandaki and Shankar Pokhrel of Province 5—close aides of Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli—both were also given the responsibility of party’s provincial in-charge.
The NCP Secretariat meeting also discussed the opposition party’s negative attitude towards the government. Following the meeting, party spokesperson Narayan Kaji Shrestha said the Nepali Congress failed to follow democratic norms and values.
“The government should move ahead as per the people’s mandate, Congress should be a watchdog and face elections but the party failed to follow democratic norms as per the rule of law,” Shrestha said, adding that the NC should refrain from unnecessarily opposing the government activities.
“The NC has been showing anti-democratic nature by opposing even the bills and minor proposals from endorsing through majority votes,” he added.
Leaders claimed that Prime Minister Oli had lashed out at the NC’s harsh comments against the government’s achievements in one year.
At a press meet on Sunday, NC spokesperson Bishwa Prakash Sharma had claimed the Oli government wasted his precious one year in office just laying the foundation on sand.