The clash of the titans

KATHMANDU, JUL 21 -
With the latest developments in the party, the relationship between UCPN (Maoist) leaders Baburam Bhattarai and Narayan Kaji Shrestha has soured.

In inaugural speeches during the party plenum, they subtly criticised each other. Bhattarai charged that the party began to face problems after its unification, hinting that the Maoist party plunged into a crisis after its merger with Shrestha’s party.

Shrestha countered by saying that the problem was created as “some leaders began to act with their individual interests at the centre”. But hostility between the two spilled over during the closed session of the plenum on Saturday.

The Shrestha faction has concluded that Bhattarai’s resignation as a vice-chairman was “a ploy to sideline them in the party”. Leaders say the party forced Shrestha to resign although he was elected from the party’s seventh general convention in February.

If Bhattarai has accepted the position of the senior leader, the Shrestha faction believes that there is no need for the dissolution of the office bearers’ team. The duo lacked cordial relation even when Bhattarai was the prime minister and Shrestha the foreign minister. Shrestha publicly opposed some agreements with India such as the Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Act.

“Bhattarai was seeking ways to corner Shrestha as he opposed some bilateral agreements related to national independence,” said a leader close to Shrestha. Bhattarai was dissatisfied with Dahal’s move to make Shrestha another vice-chairman when his party, Unity Centre Masal, was merged with the then CPN-Maoist in 2009.

But the Bhattarai faction maintains there is no hostility with Shrestha and other leaders who joined the party in peacetime. “It is Baburam’s right to give up the post, the move is not targeted at sidelining any leader,” said Devenda Poudel, a leader close to Bhattarai.

After the plenum, Pushpa Kamal Dahal will emerge as a powerful chairman of the party as in the insurgency period. All the powers were then centralised on Dahal but the party went for collective leadership after joining the peace process.

Speaking at the plenum, some representatives said it is not good to centralise all the powers on an individual leader. Some leaders wondered whether Dahal had tactfully played between the two vice-chairmen to consolidate his position. Dahal supporters, however, say the move is a temporary arrangement while the national convention will re-establish collective leadership in the party. “It’s an exceptional temporary arrangement,” said leader Haribol Gajurel.

Labels: Highlight, News