CPN (Maoist Center) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal on Sunday has claimed that there are efforts to derail unification with CPN-UML.
Addressing the program jointly organized by the two parties on Sunday to celebrate the establishment of the first communist party in Nepal around seven decades ago that was delayed by almost four hours due to dispute about a banner, he claimed that unification will be announced suddenly catching everyone by surprise.
Claiming that there are efforts to provoke the two parties against unification, he pointed at the need for both the parties to exercise restraint. He warned that the people will not forgive the leaders if they fail to deliver unification of the left parties.
He revealed that he and UML Chairman KP Sharma Oli have agreed for a 'wise' unification on equal terms taking respect and situation into consideration.
He started his address talking about the banner dispute clarifying that the parties could not pay attention as they had to focus on ideological and organizational issues for unification.
The program scheduled to start at Rashtriya Sabhagriha at one in the afternoon was delayed due to opposition over omission of pictures of global communist leaders including Lenin. Pictures of Karl Marx and Lenin have been kept on chairs on the side of the stage.
The parties had earlier agreed to keep two banners in the program to end the dispute.
A man in the audience had taken exception to the absence of portrait of Lenin in the program that was organized to mark Lenin's birthday. He even tried to remove that board.
The banner had small portraits of Pushpa Lal Shrestha, Madan Bhandari and Manmohan Adhikari, and bigger ones of UML Chairman KP Sharma Oli and Maoist Center Pushpa Kamal Dahal.
The program was jointly organizing to send a message of unity amidst doubts that the long-awaited unification may not eventually happen.
Oli and Dahal have been holding long one-on-one meetings almost every day to finalize unification.
The meeting of the coordination committee for unification held at the prime minister’s Official residence in Baluwatar on Tuesday had put unification on hold citing lack of adequate homework. The meeting had also authorized the two chairmen to finalize the reports prepared by the two task forces formed to expedite unification.
The parties had scheduled unification for April 22 to mark the establishment of the first communist party in Nepal but have yet to agree on some issues including representation at the top level of the unified party.
Maoist Center says there should be equal representation in the standing, politburo and central committees but UML disagrees.
The task force including leaders from both the parties has almost agreed on a 300-strong central committee. UML central committee currently has 209 members, and UML leaders have proposed to add Maoist leaders to take the number to 300.
UML argues there cannot be equal sharing in the central committee after the two parties shared tickets in 60:40 proportion in the recent federal and provincial elections, and candidacy for the National Assembly election in 70:30 proportion.
Maoist Center disagrees and argues that doing so would seem like a takeover of Maoist Center by UML instead of unification, and proposes that unification should be done in a manner that self-respect of both the parties is honored to make the unified party strong even in the future.
