Five disgruntled members of the task force formed by the ruling CPN to prepare a proposal for organizational unification have submitted separate report.
Barsh Man Pun, Surendra Pandey, Yogesh Bhattarai, Beduram Bhusal and Lekh Raj Bhatta—who constituted a majority in the nine-member task force—have submitted the separate report to chairman duo KP Sharma Oli and Pushpa Kamal Dahal two days after the party dissolved the task force and handed over the responsibility of preparing the proposal for organizational unification on Friday.
They have accused coordinator of the task force Ram Bahadur Thapa, General Secretary Bishnu Paudel and Province 5 Chief Minister Shankar Pokharel of not taking the work of task force seriously and attributed the failure to prepare a consensus report to that.
"Task force members proposed to conduct the meetings for a longer duration to complete the work but serious attention was not paid toward completing the task by working for a longer time. The meeting postponed for five days on January 8 after comrade Shankar Pokharel said he has to go to the province for Maghi celebrations was held two weeks later on January 21," the report points.
"The majority of members on January 21 had opined that work should be moved forward even by keeping the issues of disagreement on hold as there was little time left. But coordinator comrade ended the meeting saying additional discussions will be held the next day and promised to send message for the next day's meeting. But the message for the next day's meeting never arrived."
The report slammed coordinator Thapa and general secretary Paudel for not conducting serious discussions in the task force and then complaining in the secretariat meeting that the task force has failed to work, and said the attitude is sad for intra-party democracy.
"The attitude of not convening task force meetings when the members are ready to complete the work but complaining in the secretariat that the task force has failed to work, and influencing to make the decision to submit an incomplete report is against the main spirit of the members," the report states. "This kind of behavior in our party that practices intra-party people's democracy is sad. We take serious exception to that."
The disenchanted members have pointed that the more well-managed the party becomes, the better performance the two-third majority government it is running can deliver. "The party with membership of around a million and supporters of over five millions can be run in no other manner apart from a clear procedure, system and standard," the report emphasizes.
A joint meeting of the secretariat and task force held at the prime minister's official residence in Baluwatar Friday morning had dissolved the task force and handed over the responsibility to the secretariat.
The task force formed by the standing committee could not agree on the organizational structure and submitted a report to the secretariat, instead of the standing committee, including the issues that have been agreed upon and those that have not been.
Coordinator of the task force Ram Bahadur Thapa and member Bishnu Paudel had the same position but the majority of members differed.
The members had been threatening that they will prepare a separate report and present it in the standing committee meeting. Barsh Man Pun, Surendra Pandey, Yogesh Bhattarai, Beduram Bhusal and Lekh Raj Bhatta during the task force meeting on February 7 threatened to submit a separate report.
"Efforts are being made to send a message that the task force has failed," Pun had said during the meeting.
Other members in the task force Shankar Pokharel and Raghubir Mahaseth were not present during the meeting and Paudel was the only one to support Thapa.
"The task force was formed by the standing committee and the secretariat cannot dissolve it. They are trying to tag it as a failure without even holding discussions," a task force member had told Setopati.
The previous task force meeting on January 21 had agreed on the issue of amending the party statute. But there was dispute about whether the task force can recommend about changing the members in provincial committees. Coordinator Thapa had stopped the meeting after that.
Members from the Madhav Nepal faction during the meeting were firm that the party should move forward as per the principle of one person, one post, and recommended that the provincial committees should be changed accordingly.
They argued that Chief Minister of Province 5 Shankar Pokharel should resign from the post of province coordinator. But Pokharel has already told the standing committee that he would rather resign from CM than relinquish the political responsibility.
The meeting could not take a decision once the issue of organizational changes was discussed. The Nepal faction has accused Pokharel of recommending only the leaders from his faction in the district committees when he was in the unification task force before he was appointed the province coordinator. The issue again entered the task force.
The standing committee had formed the task force under Thapa on December 28, 2018 to submit a proposal about organizational unification of the party and to resolve the discrepancies in the provincial committees within 15 days.
The task force failed to even enter the issue of district committees after failing to agree on the issue of provincial committees.
