CPN Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal has expressed displeasure at the practice of ruling and opposition factions inside the party.
"The party must be operated with consensus and understanding," Dahal said while replying to questions raised about the political report prepared jointly by him and fellow chairman KP Sharma Oli during the ongoing standing committee meeting. "There seems to be ruling and opposition factions inside the party perhaps due to the long parliamentary practice. There should not be concept of permanent ruling and opposition factions inside the party. We must move forward taking all along."
He urged that there should be a single party and not ruling and opposition factions after coming out of the standing committee meeting.
He claimed that the government has done some important works and they have been included in the report while also accepting some mistakes.
Standing committee members have commented that the report has been prepared to give an impression that there were no mistakes by the party and government. "There are some mistakes and we have also received complaints from the people. We must move forward correcting them," Dahal stated. "A team of party leaders must sit together and discuss about important works including political appointments."
A standing committee member coming from the then CPN-UML told Setopati that Dahal displayed capacity to lead the unified party while putting his opinions for two hours.
Conceding that the practice of two chairmen is new, he added that the discussion during the standing committee meeting has been a lesson for him. "This is the first comprehensive meeting after party unification. This was a school for me. The standing committee was a long time coming but the discussions were top class," he commented. "Both the chairmen should take responsibility for the delay. We accept that."
He stated that presentation of the standing committee members during the ongoing meeting was short-tempered. He defended the functioning of party saying that work cannot be done as per the expectations when there are two chairmen in the party. He pointed that he also has to be careful that there is no misunderstanding with another chairman and Prime Minister (PM) Oli.
He pointed how threats and offers were made to stop party unification. "Many efforts were made to prevent unification. I was offered premiership, and some even threatened me after I refused to become PM," Dahal claimed. "Unification happened despite all that. It is good that it happened. It is now time to make the unification stronger. Nobody can shake us if internal unity is strong. I have told the PM to focus on internal unity."
Another chairman and PM Oli will answer the questions raised by the standing committee members on Thursday.
