Home Minister and CPN secretariat member Ram Bahadur Thapa has talked with Prime Minister (PM) KP Sharma Oli for almost an hour on Wednesday.
Thapa, who has yet to decide about which faction to join, talked with Oli at Baluwatar after Executive Chairman of CPN Pushpa Kamal Dahal twice went to ministerial quarter in Pulchowk on Monday and Tuesday to woo Thapa.
Details of what Oli and Thapa discussed have yet to be revealed but sources close to Thapa confide that he will announce his allegiance Wednesday itself.
Thapa had also gone to meet CPN Vice-chairman Bam Dev Gautam, who like him has not declared his allegiance yet, at the latter's residence in Bhainsepati on Tuesday when the faction of Dahal and Madhav Kumar Nepal was holding meeting at Babar Mahal.
Thapa, who became minister on Maoist quota, has grown close to Oli after becoming minister and had not resigned when seven ministers close to Dahal and Nepal resigned on Sunday leading to speculation that he may have joined the Oli camp.
But he has not attended the meeting of either faction. His confidants on Monday had advised him to resign from the Cabinet but he has yet to resign.
Thapa has a small group that had split along with Mohan Baidya from the then Maoists and later returned to the Maoist party led by Dahal. Thapa, Pampha Bhusal and Dev Gurung became CPN standing committee member after unification of the Maoists with the then CPN-UML.
The group currently has around a dozen federal lawmakers and almost three dozen CPN central committee members.
