Nepali Congress (NC) President Sher Bahadur Deuba will face difficulty to select candidates for the post of general secretary in the upcoming general convention.
He may even find it difficult to get reelected as president if he fails to keep his faction intact pleasing all the aspirants for the post of general secretary what with Vice-president Bimalendra Nidhi already announcing he will fight for the post of president.
Joint General Secretary Prakash Sharan Mahat, and central members Bishwa Prakash Sharma, Bal Krishna Khand, Gyanendra Bahadur Karki, Ramesh Lekhak and NP Saud are aspirants for the post from the Deuba faction.
Sharma has already announced candidacy for the post meeting Deuba before the announcement to inform about his candidacy. Sharma had joined the Deuba camp only before being appointed spokesperson by the party president having already been elected central member in the last general convention. He wants to contest from the Deuba camp as far as possible but will contest for the post even if he is not fielded as a candidate by the camp for two posts of general secretary.
The ruling party, that earlier elected only one general secretary with the president nominating the other, has amended its statute this time electing both the general secretaries through the general convention.
Joint General Secretary Mahat wants to contest for general secretary but wants to announce candidacy only after discussion with Deuba and the team. He will vie for the post of vice-president, according to a source close to him, if he does not get to contest for general secretary from the faction.
Khand, Saud and Lekhak, who have all been close to Deuba for a long time, are also aspirants for the post. All three have good hold in party organization and the former two have very good hold in the Far West that Deuba also hails from.
The three also want to announce candidacy only after discussion with Deuba. A source close to Lekhak confided that he may contest for joint general secretary if he doesn't get to fight for general secretary but will not switch camps merely for not getting to contest for general secretary.
There is speculation that Deuba may convince Karki, who is law minister, to not contest for general secretary. "Those who are ministers perhaps may not fight for office-bearers. Karki may help Deuba moving forward," a leader close to Deuba told Setopati.
Bijay Kumar Gachchhadar, who was made vice-president by Deuba through a political decision amending party statute after he returned to the party, and current General Secretary Purna Bahadur Khadka are expected to contest for the two positions of vice-president from the Deuba camp.
But the most interesting contest in the next general convention looks set to happen for general secretary.
Gagan Thapa was the first to formally announce candidacy for the post of general secretary. Thapa, who had also contested for general secretary in the last general convention and lost to Shashank Koirala from the faction of Senior Leader Ram Chandra Paudel, was associated with the faction of Krishna Sitaula then.
Sources close to Thapa confide that he will contest in the upcoming general convention from the anti-establishment camp but not from the Sitaula faction and is determined to even contest independent of any faction if the Paudel faction fields other candidates.
There are many contenders for the post even from the Paudel faction with Minendra Rijal, Chandra Bhandari, Dhan Raj Gurung and Sarita Prasai among others already preparing to contest for the position. The Paudel faction will face difficulty to decide on the candidates like the Deuba faction.
Pradip Paudel from the Sitaula faction also looks likely to contest for the post as Thapa will not contest from the faction this time.
The fact that more than 300,000 out of around 900,000 active members of NC are youths and the party has amended its statute allowing those who have only recently become active member to contest for general convention representative doing away with the previous provision that required experience of four years as an active member will mean that the young candidates like Thapa and Sharma will have a strong chance to get elected.
