World News | Nepal PM Oli Reconstitutes Standing Committee of CPN-UML Excluding Leaders Close to Party Rivals

Kathmandu, Apr 23 (PTI) Nepal Prime Minister and Chairman of the ruling CPN-UML K P Sharma Oli on Friday reconstituted the Standing Committee, the highest decision-making body of the party, excluding leaders close to his rivals Madhav Kumar Nepal and Jhalanath Khanal, further widening the intra-party rift.

The decision to reconstitute the party's highest body comes a day after Oli held a one-to-one meeting with senior leader Nepal on Thursday.

While forming the Standing Committee, Oli included leaders who sided with him when the intra-party rift had reached the climax in the erstwhile Nepal Communist Party.

He removed leaders close to the Nepal-Khanal faction, his rivals in the party.

The Communist Party of Nepal- Unified Marxist–Leninist (CPN-UML), revived after the Supreme Court verdict to invalidate the Nepal Communist Party born out of the merger between the then CPN-UML and CPN (Maoist Center) in 2018, has witnessed a serious internal feud as the Oli-led faction is taking actions one after another against the leaders of Madhav Nepal-led faction accusing them of being involved in factional politics.

The two parties had merged in May 2018 to form a unified Nepal Communist Party following the victory of their alliance in the 2017 general elections. The Nepal-Khanal faction which had sided with Prachanda's CPN-MC after Prime Minister Oli's decision to dissolve the House of Representatives in December, seeking his resignation, had to return to the CPN-UML fold.

Ram Bahadur Thapa, Lekha Raj Bhatta, Top Bahadur Rayamajhi and Mani Thapa are among the former Maoist leaders who were included in Oli led UML's Standing Committee, according to party sources.

"Some party leaders are found to have been involved in anti-party activities and convening parallel meetings of the party. The meeting calls those concerned to halt such activities against the interest of the party," reads a decision taken during the meeting of the general convention preparatory committee.

The decision to induct new members in the Standing Committee was taken during the meeting of the Tenth General Convention preparatory committee that took place at the Prime Minister's Official residence at Baluwatar on Friday.

Oli earlier suspended Nepal from the party's ordinary membership, alleging that he had been involved in anti-party activities.

Nepal had organised parallel meetings of the CPN-UML as the ruling party was virtually split between the Oli faction and Nepal-Khanal faction.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)