Kathmandu, March 30
The faction of the ruling CPN-UML led by senior leader Madhav Kumar Nepal has decided to neither accept the party chairman KP Sharma Oli’s decisions nor split the party anytime soon.
Instead, the camp decided to continue parallel activities in the party.
As many as 11 standing committee members of the party belonging to the camp held a meeting on Tuesday to discuss their next strategy, a day after Oli suspended Nepal and Bhim Rawal from the general membership of the party for six months.
The factional meeting, however, decided that the actions were taken against the party statute.
“This is a result of the ill intent to close all doors of discussions and debates about the party’s ideologies and organisation and ultimately split the party,” the leaders said in a statement after the meeting. “We condemn the act against our party statute, system and norms.”
Earlier this month, a meeting of the party’s central committee in absence of the leaders of the rival camp led by Nepal had sought clarifications from Nepal, Rawal, Ghana Shyam Bhusal and Surendra Pandey accusing them of conducting various activities against the party leadership.
Before that, Oli had removed leaders of the rival camp from party responsibilities. In response, the camp had organised a national cadres’ meeting and has been forming parallel committees in sister organisations and various districts.
On March 7, a verdict by the Supreme Court had revived the UML and the Maoist Centre by declaring the 2018 unification between them illegitimate. This decision had forced Nepal, who was preparing to split the NCP and form a party with the Maoist Centre’s Pushpa Kamal Dahal by removing Oli, to return to the UML controlled by him.
