Current Affairs

Tension ran high outside Nepali Congress (NC) party headquarters Monday ahead of the party’s crucial central committee meeting that is expected to draw up new strategies to contest in provincial and general elections due later this year.

The meeting, which followed angry demonstrations, is also expected to review the party’s performance in the local elections held in May. But party workers close to influential leader Shekhar Koirala remain agitated at the working style of President Sher Bahadur Deuba who, his opponents claim, doesn’t hold consultations before making key decisions.

The demonstration followed a meeting of NC office bearers which endorsed statute of the party’s sister organisations, including the women, youth, student and other wings.

Yet leaders and cadres didn’t seem happy.

NC, which is Nepal’s oldest political party, improved its overall vote score in the recently-held local elections compared to the last general elections held in 2017 when it had been reduced to the second position - after the communist parties, including CPN-UML and CPN (Maoist Centre) forged an electoral alliance.

That alliance remains broken into pieces after former prime minister and CPN (UML) leader KP Oli last year single-handedly dissolved the lower house of Parliament, House of Representatives, igniting a constitutional crisis.

The House was later reinstated by the Supreme Court, after which a new alliance of five parties including NC, Maoist-Centre, United Socialist and others emerged, with Nepali Congress President and current Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba leading it.

With the communist parties split into pieces, Nepali Congress leaders see a better opportunity for their candidates to win more seats and improve their electoral performance in the upcoming elections due in November.

Yet leaders of the Shekhar Koirala faction of NC have been voicing concerns that President Deuba could come in the way and may not let NC improve the party’s electoral score. That sort of anger spilled out on the streets again today, as NC cadres demonstrated against their own President.

They shouted slogans and tried to block the way just as the vehicle carrying Deuba, also the Prime Minister, entered the party headquarters. Demanding “equal opportunities for all cadres, including Dalits” and “fair appointments” in the party’s sister organisations, they held a huge black banner demanding “respect to the party statute” and several placards, criticising Deuba’s working styles.

Ahead of the big elections, the party remains divided, with several factions at play – and each clashing against another. Some leaders and cadres have also been criticising Deuba’s alleged plans to promote his wife and son as key candidates by bypassing several bona fide and qualified leaders and party workers scattered around the country. 

NepalMinute has captured some photos of the demonstration: