NCP Secretariat meeting underway

KATHMANDU, May 2: The ruling Nepal Communist Party Secretariat meeting has begun one-and-a-half hour behind the schedule at the Prime Minister’s official residence in Baluwatar.

The meeting will discuss various issues including PM K P Sharma Oli’s proposal to line Bam Dev Gautam as next prime minister and Madhav Kumar Nepal as third chair and expected to resolve the intraparty tension that escalated after Oli pushed the controversial ordinances of April 19.

The meeting is also expected to decide on the meeting of the party’s standing committee.

Meanwhile, the meeting has changed the sitting arrangement of the secretariat members, where Executive Chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal, who sat with other members in the previous meetings, has taken his position behind Oli.
Prior to the meeting, the prime minister, who seems desperate to save his chair in both the party and the government, had held discussion with President Bidya Devi Bhandari and Dahal separately.

Dahal-Nepal faction has been pressuring Oli to resign from the post of prime minister and party chair.

But it has been learned that Oli is unlikely to submit to his rival faction’s demands since he has now become able to garner majority in the Secretariat.

After Gautam and Home Minister Ram Bahadur Thapa changed their alliance, Oli is now in majority in the nine-member Secretariat. Oli already had support from Deputy-prime Minister and Defense Minister Ishwar Pokharel and General Secretary Bishnu Paudel.

Nepal and Dahal has support from Jhala Nath Khanal and Narayan Kaji Shrestha.