By Sunil KC

The absolute authority KP Oli in the CPN-UML has been questioned and challenged after the party kicked Dr. Bhim Rawal out of the party, and suspended two others Dr. Binda Pandey, standing committee member, and Usha Kiran Timsina, central committee member, from the party and relieving them of all responsibilities for six months for questioning Oli’s decision to accept more than a billion rupee ‘donation’ from Min Bahadur Gurung, owner of the BhatBheteni chain of supermarkets, of land and to build the party’s central office in Kirtipur. That was three months ago.

Dr. Pandey said she opposed the donation, in her social media post, saying such a freebie from a businessman, who is one of the accused in the infamous Lalita Niwas land fraud scam, would tarnish the party’s image, and that the decision to accept the donation was primarily of Oli and his close confidantes without proper discussion within the party.

Last week, the party came down upon them by expelling Dr. Rawal from the party and suspending Dr. Pandey and Ms. Timsina for six months.

However, Oli has remained defiant and justified the donation saying at a public forum challenging other parties saying, is there any political party that had built their offices without donations or any candidate who had run in the election without taking money from businessmen. This was an open admission of big money involvement from businessmen and others in the political parties and their leaders.

He did not even hide his ambition to become like Xi Jinping, the Chinese leader, who has been at the helm of Chinese politics and the Chinese Communist Party for more than a decade now. Talking to the media on the sacking of Dr. Rawal and the suspension of two others, Oli said, ”Look at China. Nobody there questions the decision of the leadership.”

He has been presiding over the CPN-UML like L’UML c’est moi since the last party convention three years ago in November 2021. The convention had also abolished the party’s earlier decision to bar any person over 70 years ago from the top leadership to allow Oli become the party’s top man.

In that convention, Dr. Rawal, vice president at that time, had challenged Oli for the leadership sowed a seed of discord between them. This was an opportunity for Oli to take revenge on Dr. Rawal for showing his rebelliousness in Oli’s many decisions. Several UML leaders showed their reservations saying the present punishment was too harsh. It is not uncommon for communist parties worldwide to kick people out of the party and silence them for disagreeing with the leadership or for differing views and opinions. However, this did not augur well for Oli this time. Dr. Rawal has come out even more vocal in his criticism of Oli. One former UML man Ghanashyam Bhusal and now with Madhav Nepal’s group said in an interview last week that with Oli, if you don’t agree with him, you are his enemy and he wants everyone who agrees with him to be servile to him.

Even within the UML, the murmur of discontent has started to become vocal. There are indications by those discontent ones of seeking a replacement of Oli. There are rumors that they are trying to bring in former president Vidya Devi Bhandari into active politics to challenge Oli’s leadership.

Other communist leaders, who Oli had sidelined or had forced to break up with the UML, like Madhav Kumar Nepal, Jhal Nath Khanal, Bamdev Gautam, and even Prachanda’s Maoist party, are seeing this as an opportunity to bring Oli down to size. They are trying to woo Dr. Rawal. Dr. Rawal’s ouster from UML may be seen as a setback to the UML party especially in the far west region, where Dr. Rawal is seen as an influential leader.

However, Oli’s grip may have loosened a bit, but his hold on the party is still tight enough. A strong enough challenge to his leadership from within the party is too early to call because no one in the UML at present exhibits such authority among the party cadres, and the splintered groups of UML and other communist parties are too fractionalized or their reach to party cadres too localized.