CPN lawmaker Mahesh Basnet has said the faction of Prime Minister (PM) KP Sharma Oli has decided to for cyber army to counter what he called planned propaganda against the PM.
Basnet, who is a confidant of Oli, in an interview with Setopati said the unit will use information technology experts with the faction to dispel the propaganda. He reasoned that the unit has been called cyber army for psychological influence as naming it something else would not have the same impact.
He revealed that he is not the chief of the cyber army and just in-charge of the faction's youth wing, and added that someone else in the reshuffled organization of the youth wing can be given the responsibility of cyber army chief.
Basnet, who was accused of abducting Socialist Party (now Janata Samajwadi Party) lawmaker Dr Surendra Yadav with help of former Nepal Police IGP Sarbendra Khanal, and CPN lawmakers Kisan Shrestha last April as the internal dispute in the ruling CPN escalated, conceded that he may again have to work to win over lawmakers as the two factions of CPN compete to prove majority in the CPN parliamentary party.
He pointed that he is close to the PM and added that there is an assumption that he can handle any kind of situation. He claimed that lawmakers who don't have direct access to the PM contact him to get close to the PM instead of him being deployed by the PM for the job.
He claimed that Oli has majority in the parliamentary party arguing that the Dahal-Nepal faction would have registered the no-confidence motion in the parliamentary party and not the parliament if the faction had majority.
The fact that Pushpa Kamal Dahal and Madhav Kumar Nepal together have support of just about as many lawmakers as Oli has, he stressed, is a moral loss for the Dahal-Nepal faction. He added that many lawmakers who had made up their mind to join the Dahal-Nepal faction have also changed their mind after seeing the faction's celebrations following the Supreme Court verdict and interview of Dahal that India and China would feel comfortable if the faction were to form government in alliance with Nepali Congress and Janata Samajwadi Party.
