Nepal Communist Party meeting to decide PM KP Oli's tenure postponed indefinitely

Kathmandu: A crucial meeting of Nepal’s ruling communist party scheduled for Tuesday to iron out the differences between Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli and the rival faction led by party executive chairperson Pushpa Kamal Dahal “Prachanda” has been postponed indefinitely. The meeting of the 45-member Standing Committee of the Nepal Communist Party (NCP) was scheduled for 11 am. The two leaders – Prime Minister Oli and Prachanda – need more time for informal consultations to sort out their differences, Standing Committee member Ganesh Shah said, announcing the postponement of the talks. On Wednesday last week, a Standing Committee meeting was briefly held at the Prime Minister’s Official residence at Baluwatar. However, the prime minister did not attend the meeting. Subsequently, the party decided to convene another meeting a week later, on 28 July, to review its activities, the government’s performance, finalising division of work among party cadres and leaders, and proposed general convention among other issues. Tuesday’s meeting was postponed as the two leaders need some more time for consultation, PM’s press advisor Surya Thapa said in a Facebook post. The date of the next meeting will be decided after the two leaders hold consultations, he said. A bitter internal feud has been brewing in the ruling NCP since the last few weeks after top party leaders, including Prachanda, demanded Oli’s resignation, saying his recent anti-India remarks were “neither politically correct nor diplomatically appropriate.” They are also against Oli’s autocratic style of functioning. The differences grew further after Oli said that some of the ruling party leaders are aligning with the southern neighbour to remove him from power after his government issued a new political map incorporating three Indian territories of Kalapani, Lipulekh, and Limpiyadhura. Prachanda on Monday last week said efforts were going on to resolve the intra-party differences and ruled out an early general convention of the party as proposed by embattled Prime Minister Oli. Oli and Prachanda have held at least eight meetings in recent weeks to sort out the differences between them. But, as the Prime Minister did not accept the condition of a one-man-one-post, the talks failed. Oli has refused to give up his post as prime minister as well as a co-chairman of the NCP.