Review Nepal
Kathmandu, Nepal, March 3, 2020: Internal rivalry surfaced now in the ruling head Nepal Communist Party (NCP) seems to take a nasty turn as leaders, particularly the chairman duo-Pushpa Kamal Dahal and KP Sharma Oli, who is also the Prime Minister, intensified their power equation game.
As Prime Minister Oli made some decisions including the recalling of ambassador to China Leelamani Poudel and appointed Mahendra Bahadur Pandey in the post without consultation in the party jus a day before he underwent hospital for his kidney transplant on Sunday, leaving space to speculate the power equation game.
The Cabinet meeting held on Sunday evening was expected to nomination party’s vice president Bamdev Gautam as the National Assembly member as per the suggestion made from the secretariat meeting of the party.
As Poudel is considered as loyal to Dahal, the decision is taken as retribution against of the rival faction to counter the secretariat decision to forward the name of Gautam for the member of Upper House even with the intent to present him as the alternative candidate of the prime minister.
Though the secretariat meeting, wherein Dahal holds majority, made the decision going against the interest of Oli, the rivalry of the party has reached in the stage of vertical split. Dahal camp wants to present Gautam as alternative candidate of the Prime Minister by appointing him as the national assembly member and amending in the constitution.
The Oli led camp has stated that recalling or appointing ambassadors fall under the prerogative right of the government. However, the Dahal led camp outright rejected the claim stating that the government should follow the directives of the party and there should have a consultations with the leaders before taking any decisions.
Senior leaders of the party, particularly the chairman duo Oli and Dahal are currently at odds over the ranges of issues. Though the differences over the issue of leading the government on rotational basis was settled with the agreement to handover the executive right to Dahal to run the party, internal rifts have repeatedly been surfacing in the party.
The CPN UML led by Oli and the Maoist center led by Dahal had merged their party to form the NCP with the agreement to run the government and party in a rotating basis. However, the agreement did not come into implementation after Oli denied to handover the post of Prime Minister to Dahal.
Both the chairmen have now indulged on the game for the power equation to consolidate the power in the party and the government. It is also believed that Pandey’s recommendation as ambassador to China would have made after a deal with Madhav Kumar Nepal to break alliance with Dahal as Pandey is believed as a close confident of Nepal.
