CPN Chairmen KP Sharma Oli and Pushpa Kamal Dahal are likely to keep the much-wanted school department with themselves after failing to agree on its leadership.
The two chairmen continued their consultations even on Thursday and included General Secretary Bishnu Paudel and secretariat member Ram Bahadur Thapa during the discussion.
A secretariat source confided with Setopati that the two chairmen may keep the department with themselves for now. "The secretariat meetings scheduled for later today can conclude the remaining works of unification as there is not much disagreement on leadership of other departments," the source added.
The last secretariat meeting on July 29 had asked General Secretary Paudel to talk with central leaders about their wish and prepare a report after the meeting failed to decide about leadership of the party's departments including the school department.
Dahal and Paudel have separately talked with leaders about their wish, and the latter has already prepared the report that was scheduled to be presented to Tuesday's secretariat meeting. But the meeting was postponed for Wednesday and then for Thursday.
The majority of CPN standing committee members during their interaction with Paudel have claimed for leadership of the party departments and opined that secretariat members should not be overburdened with responsibility of leading the departments.
Leaders have already agreed to hand over leadership of 18 departments to former UML leaders and 14 to Maoist leaders but they have yet to agree about leadership of the 33
rd department.
Oli is adamant that secretariat member Ishwore Pokharel should lead the school department while Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal insists that another secretariat member Narayan Kaji Shrestha should get the department.
Former Maoist leaders vehemently oppose appointment of Pokharel saying a person who has been lobbying to make people's multiparty democracy the united party's guiding principle should not be made chief of the school department but former UML leaders are not unanimous on Pokharel.
Senior leader Jhala Nath Khanal, who is also a member of the nine-strong secretariat, has already stated that he will accept the responsibility if the party decides to hand over the department to him despite already agreeing to head the policy and academy department.
