UCPN (M) closer to single leadership Vice-chairman Shrestha, Gen Secy Bogati resign

KATHMANDU, JUL 21 -
The extended meeting of the UCPN (Maoist) is all set to endorse on Sunday  Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal’s proposal that aims to steer the party towards a single leadership system until a national convention slated to be held after the Constituent Assembly (CA) election.  

Speaking at the closed session of the plenum on Saturday, a majority of the plenum representatives supported Dahal’s proposal, with ‘marginal voices against it.’

Backing Dahal’s proposal, Vice-chairman Narayan Kaji Shrestha and General Secretary Post Bahadur Bogati on Saturday resigned from their respective positions.

Both Shrestha and Bogati are not satisfied with Dahal’s proposal but agreed to resign to ‘maintain party unity’ ahead of the CA election.

In the closed-session of the plenum, 500 representatives were divided into 16 groups. After group discussions on Dahal’s proposal of steering the party to the single-leadership model, group leaders presented their views on the proposal.

“All the group leaders supported Dahal’s single leadership model but demanded further explanation of his proposal,” said party spokesperson Agni Sapkota.

Plenum representatives also urged Baburam Bhattarai to withdraw his resignation as party vice-chairman, saying that the method he adopted was wrong and against the party policy. Some representatives also argued that it would be a flawed idea to create a senior post for Bhattarai.

“Bhattarai is trying to create a parallel power centre in the party like Sher Bahadur Deuba in the Nepali Congress and Madhav Kumar Nepal in the CPN-UML,” said leader Shalikram Jammakattel.

Pro-Dahal leaders termed Bhattarai’s resignation ahead of the election “irresponsible.”

Plenum representatives close to Shrestha, however, criticised Dahal’s proposal saying that the office bearers elected by the seventh general convention should be retained.

Dahal on Friday floated the proposal of the single leadership as an interim measure to resolve the intra-party rift that dissolves all the top positions except the chairman. Dahal’s proposal boxes all the top leaders as Central Committee members.

In his document, Dahal has pledged to call party’s national convention to settle the organisational row.

The party called the plenum meeting after Bhattarai stepped down on June 30 to ‘build a culture of sacrifice in the party and promote the new generation.’

The Maoist boss came up with such a proposal after the repeated attempts to keep Bhattarai in the party as senior leader failed.

The extended plenum is scheduled to conclude on Sunday preparing party’s election policy and strategy. The plenum will also allocate the responsibilities to leaders targetting the Constituent Assembly (CA) eleciton.

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