KATHMANDU: Former CPN-UML’s tallest figure from the Madhes region Ram Chandra Jha joined the UCPN (Maoist) on Saturday.
After joining the former rebel party, Jha said he joined the Maoist party due to common understanding in state restructuring and the Maoists’ new political doctrine approved by the recently held 7th national jamboree.

“I am joining the Maoist with full conviction to the party’s new guideline passed by the general convention. I reached a conclusion to join the Maoist instead of enjoying merely as a bystander,” he said while addressing some 200 plus cadres and leaders.
Maoist supremo Pushpa Kamal Dahal and Vice-chairman Dr Baburam Bhattarai welcomed the newest entrant in the UCPN (Maoist) party.

Jha was the UML’s seniormost leader from the Tarai belt. Similarly, Jha is the most influential figure to join the Maoist from the UML.
Also on the occasion, former UML lawmaker Lucky Sherpa and leaders of Youth Association Nepal joined the Maoist alleging the UML of betraying the people.

Also speaking at the same program, YAN’s former leader Harendra Ray Yadav, a permanent resident of Rautahat district, said he wanted to defeat UML leader Madhav Kumar Nepal in the upcoming CA polls.

Addressing the program, UCPN (Maoist) Chairman Prachanda hoped to secure more votes and increase party’s clout in Madhes and overall national politics.

He said Jha’s entry in the UCPN (Maoist) would spread a new wave of political polarization in the present time and urged all progressive forces to unite for the cause of the country.

KATHMANDU: Nearly 10 months after the dissolution of the CA without promulgating the new constitution, Nepal’s major political parties finally agreed to form new election government under the leadership of Chief Justice (CJ) Khil Raj Regmi.

The parties have decided to name the new government as the Interim Election Council.

Finance Minister confirmed that major four political forces—UCPN (Maoist), Nepali Congress, CPN (UML) and Madhesi Morcha—agreed to that end and a meeting of the cabinet to hold later this night would submit to the President to remove difficulties.

Pun also said that a high-level political steering committee would be formed to assist the election government.

Likewise, UML leader KP Oli said that CJ Regmi would be sworn in as the Prime Minister at 11:00 pm.

The major political parties have also agreed to give the Maoist’s ex fighter would be given a post of a Colonel based on qualification and two Lieutenants in the Nepal Army. The former Maoist fighters are taking training in the NA after being integrated into the 240-year-old national security force.

The parties have also agreed to hold the fresh CA election on June 21 but the CJ Regmi who is leading the Interim Election Council is given time till mid-December to hold the CA election.

KATHMANDU: UCPN Maoist chairman Puspa Kamal Dahal has ruled out options other then forming a Chief Justice led consensus government to resolve ongoing political deadlock.

Speaking to journos on Saturday morning, a day after prevailing as the chairman of the party, Prachanda said that the opposition parties were resorting to confrontation by rejecting his party’s offer to form consenus government in the leadership of incumbent Chief Justice.

He said that other option to the proposal can be agitation. ” If the opposition parties do not accept forming CJ-led consensus, there is no other option then launching nation wide agitation,” Prachanda said driving home his point that the party would not inch off from its proposal.

However the opposition party leaders on Friday have trashed the proposal claiming that it was UCPN Maoist’s and thereby of Prachanda’s new strategy to extend the stay in government and jeopardising power balance between state apparatus.

Durin their first common mass meeting at the center of the capital, which witnessed sparse public, majority of the opposition leaders have denied to accept the Maoist proposal.

Prachanda’s saturday morning’s response came as a retort for the opposition party leaders, who have been demanding forming the consenus government in their leadership.

During the press meet, Prachanda asserted that the opposition parties were resorting to escalate confrontation in the nation and urged them to accept the proposal so as to hold CA elections in the spring.

Terming the whole opposition protests and rallies across the nation as a political stunt to win the upcoming elections, Prachanda said,

they too have their own problems, without creating any noise how can they face the public in the elections.

On the occasion, Prachanda praised his own strategies while bagging the credit for what he called the successful launch and resolution of the people’s war and even claimed that his present capitalist revolution strategy will be also a success in the days ahead.

The seventh general convention is significant not only because it is taking place after a long gap of 21 years but also because it comes just eight months after a formal split in the party.

Nearly 3,000 participants, including representatives and observers have thronged Hetauda to take part in the convention while the national and international media persons have also gathered for the news coverage of the event.

Earlier, a meeting of the party’s top leaders on Friday endorsed the statute to be presented in the party’s general convention emphasizing more on collective leadership.

Analysts, oppositions, UCPN (Maoist)’s critics and sympathizers have been keenly watching the former rebel party’s jamboree and are looking forward to its decisions.

Political analyst Jhalak Subedi believes that the UCPN (Maoist)’s general convention would institutionalize the party’s journey to peace politics after coming through the people’s war.

Commenting on the ideological shift of the UCPN (Maoist), Subedi hailed Maoist Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal’s document for ending his regular statements of calling Nepal a semi-feudal and semi-colonial country.

“His (Dahal’s) document has not only done away with the communist jargons, it has also ended the earlier hangover of a traditional communist party.”

Chairman Prachanda has also dropped the party’s ideology of New People’s Democratic Revolution to dub it now as Nepali revolution.

Earlier, party Chairman Prachanda had said that the party’s general convention would give a momentum to the country’s ongoing political deadlock and Nepal’s communist revolution would proceed in a new fashion in its own originality.

Likewise, political analyst Shyam Shrestha believes that the Maoists’ jamboree would further unite the party, making party’s entire mechanisms more dynamic.

“But, less pre-convention debates on UCPN (Maoist)’s agendas and guidelines proved disappointing,” Shrestha bemoaned.

Asked about possibilities of ending the country’s current political stalemate, analyst Shrestha hoped the conclave of the ruling party would set a clear roadmap for the country’s politics.

Similarly, columnist Yug Pathak said that the UCPN (Maoist) would receive a new life after the Hetauda jamboree. “From the perspective of sharp political polarization, the UCPN (Maoist) has been widely criticized. So, the convention should encourage the party to further unite,” Pathak argues.

Pathak said, “Maoists’ mentality of building a prosperous nation by quitting the single agenda of struggle would give momentum to the party,”

Chairman Prachanda in his political document entitled “New Synthesis of Nepali Revolution: A Historical Necessity” has emphasized many issues including devoting the cadres in cooperatives and productions.

Meanwhile, oppositions and Maoists’ vocal critics have viewed the general convention as just a fiasco and that it would not bring anything new for the country and people. They have argued that the general convention would end just by gathering some 3,000 cadres in Hetauda and sending them back home.

Senior journalist Yubaraj Ghimire said the question is whether the ideology and policy adopted by the convention would be enforced in letter and spirit and whether the cadres of the party would be able to make the leaders more accountable.

“It (the convention) does not hold any connection with the current national politics”, he said.

But, UCPN (Maoist) leaders Jhakku Subedi, Narendra Jung Peter and Jhalak Pani Tiwari told RSS that they would come univocally after the party’s general convention and believed that the convention would cement unity in the party and give a breakthrough to the present deadlock.

“It would up the thoughts of leaders and cadres,” Peter said.

They even shared that the general convention would revitalize the party and make cadres able to tackle with the new challenges.

Maoist leader Subedi said, “We will end up by bringing concrete agendas to uplift people’s living standards not merely the heaps of political jargons.”

Asked about future leadership of the UCPN (Maoist), analyst Subedi quipped, “It would reconfirm Prachanda’s seniority.”

Despite no change in party’s leadership, it easier to speculate that the UCPN (Maoist) would come up with a new vigor to challenge their political rivals, both in terms of ideology and organizations, to continue the party’s political clout for future, at least for a decade.