By Our Reporter Finally, Prime Minister and party President Sher Bahadur Deuba has become successful to reschedule the date for the 14th national convention of his party Nepali Congress for 25 to 29 November. This is the fifth time of postponement of the party national convention. The Central Working Committee meeting of the party on Saturday fixed the new dates. The meeting has decided to finalize the name list of the party’s active membership on 18 August and submit it to the party President on 19 August. The party has also settled down the dispute of the active membership in the party by keeping them aloof from the voting right as one of the main reasons for the postponement of the national convention was the issue of the active membership. NC’s local authorities were distributing the active membership with the aim of influencing the local level elections of the party. Although Deuba’s rival group had strongly opposed Deuba’s proposal to postpone the national convention set for 1 to 4 September in Kathmandu, finally, the new date was set through a consensus among the leaders, according to senior leader Ramchandra Poudel. The CWC meeting has also decided to hold village/town ward assembly on 3 September, village town assembly on 12 September, Province Assembly convention on 17 September and House of Representatives (HoR) assembly and district assembly having single constituency on 21 September. At the beginning of the CWC meeting, NC leaders Prakashman Singh, Sujata Koirala, and others had strongly protested the plan of postponement of the party national convention. Poudel was saying that the party would lose its legitimacy if the national convention is not held on 1 September. According to the constitution, the political parties should hold their national convention within five years and in unavoidable circumstances, the national convention should compulsorily be held in additional six months. NC has also completed the added period of six months in August. However, the establishment faction in the party has decided to consider the Covid pandemic period as the zero-hours in justifying the present postponement. Deuba’s plan: Deuba, who has become the PM through the Supreme Court order, believes that a delay in organizing the national convention date would benefit him. Deuba wants to repeat as the party president for one more term. Deuba has felt comfortable contesting the party election while leading the government. On the other hand, Deuba’s rivals in the party have not been able to develop a consensus to contest against Deuba in the party. Dr Sekhar Koirala and Shashank Koirala have already started the election campaign. Bimalendra Nidhi, a strong supporter of Deuba in the past, has also announced his candidature. Deuba believes Nidhi’s candidature will not stop him from a victory. If the rival camp cannot develop consensus on their candidate and if more than one candidate will contest from the rival camp against Deuba, the latter’s victory is almost certain. The delay in cabinet expansion is also related to the upcoming national convention. Deuba is trying to manage his rivals in the party by rewarding them with ministerial positions and other political appointments including the ambassadorial positions. Forging election alliance a compulsion for Maoist Center Maoist Center chair Pushpakamal Dahal Prachanda, addressing the central committee meeting of the party on Saturday, said that the present alliance among the communist and democratic forces will continue till the elections. The fact is that the Maoist Center has lost its base among the voters. Therefore, it has become a compulsion for Prachanda to develop an alliance with other political parties to win the elections. The year 2022 is the election year. In the beginning elections of the local bodies should be conducted. The local body elections are the sampling for calculating the strength of the political parties in the provincial and federal elections. In the 2017 elections, the UML and Maoist Center had developed an election alliance, as result, the NC was left behind. Accordingly, the Tarai based political parties had also developed an election alliance, which had helped these forces in strengthening their presence. Presently, UML and Maoist Center have strong enmity. There is no chance for an election alliance between the two parties. If the Maoist Center had contested the elections without an alliance in 2017, the party would have not been able to exhibit its present strength. Due to the dispute between UML chair K.P. Sharma Oli and Madhav Nepal, UML has also become weak. If the Nepal faction will split from the UML, the party will become further weak. However, even if the UML will split, the party may emerge as the second-largest party in the federal parliament. NC still a strong party: PM Deuba is known to be an incapable leader, and NC has done nothing special, even though, NC is united and the democratic voters have not changed their camp. In the 2017 elections, NC had bagged the same number of votes that the party was bagging in the past elections. This makes clear that NC’s votes are intact and NC has permanent voters. In the meantime, dispute and split in the communist parties and also dispute in the Janata Samajbadi Party may help NC to add its votes. In fact, the Tarai districts are the NC’s permanent vote bank and disputes in the Tarai based parties will enormously help NC to add its votes in the Tarai districts. It would be a loss for NC to develop an alliance with the communist parties. Therefore, Prachanda’s plan for continuing the alliance among the communist parties and the Nepali Congress may not be effective during the elections. Earlier too, when NC had developed an election alliance with MC in different electoral constituencies, the democratic voters didn’t follow the party decision. Later, Deuba was strongly criticized by the party for taking such an undemocratic decision. RPP is united: Presently, different three splinter factions in the Rastriya Prajatantra Party, by taking a lesson from the split, have become united. In the elections contested together in the past, RPP had been able to stand as the fourth party. The division in the communist parties, bad performance of the communist leaders, non-performance of the Nepali Congress party and split like situation in the Tarai based parties will obviously be going to benefit RPP in the upcoming elections.