INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Twenty Standing Committee members have sought SC meet, but Sectt fails to fix date for the same
Kathmandu, April 29
A meeting of the ruling
Nepal Communist Party (NCP) Secretariat today failed to agree on a date for calling the Standing Committee meeting to put pressure on Prime
Minister KP Sharma Oli to resign.
Twenty members of the Standing Committee close to party Co-chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal and senior leader
Madhav Kumar Nepal have sought a meeting of the party Standing Committee pronto.
Party Spokesperson Narayan Kaji Shrestha told THT that the
meeting failed to fix a date for Standing Committee meeting
&We have decided to hold the next Secretariat meeting on May 2
We&ll be discussing Standing Committee issues on May 2,& Shrestha said
He said all nine office bearers of the Secretariat put forth their views in today meeting.
When asked if any Secretariat member sought the
PM resignation in today meeting, a member close to Dahal said, &Majority members of the Standing Committee want the PM to resign.&
Rift
between Oli and leaders close to Dahal and Nepal has widened after the PM brought two controversial ordinances — one to facilitate split
in parties and the other to allow the Constitutional Council to take decisions on the basis of majority
The Dahal and Nepal factions have accused the PM of taking unilateral decisions without following the party directives.
Oli has fallen into
minority in the Secretariat, Standing Committee and Central Committee
He is trying hard to muster enough support in the Parliamentary Party to stay on as the PM
The ruling NCP has 174 members in the House of Representatives and the PM needs to have the backing of at least 88 members in the PP to
continue to hold the PM post.
The PM faction today started collecting signatures of lawmakers to prove majority in the Parliamentary Party
Both sides are trying to pull lawmakers of the rival faction into their camp
Oli succeeded in bringing Minister of Industry, Commerce and Supplies Lekhraj Bhatta into his camp
Bhatta, a former Maoist leader, was with Dahal not long ago.
Ruling party member of the House of Representatives Til Bahadur Mahat told THT
that he and some other NCP lawmakers met the prime minister today at his official residence and signed a document expressing their support
to Oli.
&As the prime minister was appointed for a period of five years, he should be allowed to complete his tenure
We went to the PM to express our support,& Mahat added
More than 92 lawmakers from both the houses & the HoR and the National Assembly — have voluntarily signed the solidarity book at the PM
residence.
Another ruling party lawmaker, Khagaraj Adhikari, told THT that the PM should be allowed to rule for a full five-year term,
adding that if he was removed, it could invite political instability
He said he had not been asked to sign the document expressing his support to the PM yet, but if the PM asked him to do so, he would sign the
document without any hesitation.
NCP leader Beduram Bhusal, who is close to Madhav Kumar Nepal, said the signature campaign would not help
the PM as the party bodies could always take a decision to censure him.
Meanwhile, the Dahal and Nepal factions have asked lawmakers on
their side to come to Kathmandu
In fact, most of them have already arrived in the capital.
A version of this article appears in e-paper on April 30, 2020, of The Himalayan
Times.
The post Secretariat of ruling party to meet again on Saturday appeared first on The Himalayan Times.
