By Our Reporter  The rival faction of the Nepali Congress led by Dr. Shekhar Koirala has finally succeeded to include their agenda in the decision of the recently concluded central committee meeting of the party. The rival camp, which has been criticising party president and Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba for not acting according to the party statute and taking unilateral decisions, had made their voices stronger in the central committee meeting in which two popular general secretaries—Gagan Kumar Thapa and Bishwa Prakash Sharma and vice president Dhan Raj Gurung criticised Deuba and his working style more powerfully. Although Deuba and his puppets retaliated against the youth leaders, they finally prevailed as the decision issued after the week-long central committee meeting incorporated the issues raised by the two general secretaries despite the unwillingness of Deuba. The rival faction has raised mainly four issues—holding policy conventions, forming the party’s sister organisations, the reasons for forging electoral alliances and management of party membership, and all these issues were among the 13-point decisions issued after the meeting. Moreover, general secretary Thapa has been given the responsibility of membership management. The party decided to fill up or form the sister organisations by mid-August, and hold a policy convention within a month. Likewise, the party decided that all the parties in the alliance should have common principles regarding foreign policy. Indeed, the rival faction succeeded to include an explanation regarding the modality and necessity of electoral alliance although Deuba needed simply that the party would forge an electoral alliance with the present coalition partners. It is said that vice president Purna Bahadur Khadka and Dhanraj Gurung convinced Deuba to accept the agenda of the rival faction, otherwise, Deuba has been in a mood to move ahead by suppressing the demands of the rival camp. When the two general secretaries, two joint general secretaries, and vice president Gurung openly said that they were not in a position to support the government unless it corrected the unconstitutional moves made by KP Sharma Oli while he was leading the government. They slammed the bill presented in the Upper House regarding appointments in the constitutional bodies, which was said to be similar to the ordinance issued during Oli’s premiership. Likewise, they demanded a reversal of the decision to keep a few constitutional bodies under the prime minister. Oli, with an intention of ruling with a firm fist had brought the CIAA, Department of Investigation and Vigilance Centre under the PMO. General secretaries Thapa and Sharma demanded correction of Oli’s decision.   Communist leaders exercising for unity of left forces 

File Photo: Communist leaders in Nepal

The communists have again started holding a series of talks for unity in the communist forces. Although the communists got divided after the then Prime Minister and Nepal Communist Party chairman KP Sharma Oli dissolved the House of Representatives twice in six months. The NCP was scrapped and CPN-UML suffered a split. However, a year after the split, the same leaders are now exercising forging alliance if not unity among the communists before the upcoming elections. In this context,tTop communist leaders of Nepal, who were in the secretariat of the erstwhile Nepal Communist Party (NCP) formed after merging the CPN-UML and the CPN-Maoist Centre, on Tuesday held a meeting to discuss unity among the left forces. Chairman of the CPN (Maoist Centre) Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda and leader Narayan Kaji Shrestha, chairman of CPN (Unified Socialist) Madhav Kumar Nepal and senior leader of the party Jhala Nath Khanal and coordinator of CPN Unity National Campaign Bamdev Gautam held a discussion at the Parliamentary Party office of the Maoist Centre in Singh Darbar. During the meeting, the leaders also discussed the decisions taken by ruling Nepali Congress and the main opposition CPN-UML regarding the electoral alliance, said CPN (MC) chairman Prachanda. Talking with the reporters after the meeting, Prachanda said, “The ruling alliance shall be continued and everyone agreed on this. We have been talking about making the alliance more effective.” “We also discussed the unity among the left forces. We, leader Nepal, Shrestha, Khanal and Gautam were in majority in the then NCP’s secretariat. So, we talked about unity among the parties which share similar political ideology,” said Prachanda. He also clarified that the issue of the party unity was not against the five-party alliance. According to him, this was the second meeting of the communist leaders. Prior to the meeting, a meeting was also held between Prachanda and former Maoist leader Dr. Baburam Bhattarai, who was recently expelled from the Janata Samajwadi Party-Nepal. Similarly, a political report presented by the chairman of CPN (Unified Socialist) Madhav Kumar Nepal at the party’s central committee meeting had also proposed to form a left alliance.   Division in JSP-N puts Baburam’s political future uncertain  The Janata Samajwadi Party-Nepal suffered a vertical split after the factions led by party Chair Upendra Yadav and Chair of JSP-N Federal Council Dr. Baburam Bhattarai held the party's extended central executive committee meeting separately. While the Bhattarai faction held the party meeting in Kathmandu, the Yadav faction held its meeting in Birgunj. The new development was the culmination of the factional feud that had been brewing in the party for the past few months. And ultimately, Yadav announced that Dr. Bhattarai was expelled from the party. With both sides claiming to be representing the legitimate party, the authenticity row is likely to go to the Election Commission. However, the party’s legitimacy may remain with Yadav and Dr. Bhattarai needs to form a new party although leaders close to him claimed that 230 of the 499 central committee members had backed Dr. Bhattarai. In July last year, the JSP-N suffered a split with the Mahantha Thakur-led faction forming a separate party - Democratic Socialist Party-Nepal. Earlier, JSP-N was created by uniting Madhes-based parties after the then Prime Minister KP Oli issued an ordinance to split them. Dr. Bhattarai’s Janashakti Party had merged with Yadav’s party. Bhattarai had constituted the Janatashakti party after quitting the Maoist Centre, in which he was the second ranking leader after Pushpa Kamal Dahal for over two decades. He became Prime Minister in the capacity of the Maoist leaders in 2012.