CPN (Maoist Center) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal has been unilaterally running the party that he leads unchallenged for more than three decades.
The party has started to hold general conventions after renouncing violence but they are not held in democratic spirit with Dahal unanimously being elected party chair and him picking all party committees and office-bearers as he pleases.
The party was originally set to elect a 299-strong central committee during the eighth general convention that ended at the start of January 2022. But Dahal read out names of only 236. He then said there would be 377 central members during the meeting held almost six months later but names of only 373 were made public.
Many leaders picked as central members during the general convention no longer are in the central committee while many new ones have been added. So much so that Maoist leaders joke that nobody knows the exact number of central members.
Dahal had brought three separate lists from home before announcing politburo members and jumbled things up reading different lists. “I had brought three lists. They seem to have been misplaced. I will conclude it later,” a visibly embarrassed Dahal later had to say.
He had declared that he would announce the name of office-bearers that very day but didn’t make the announcement. “I have names of the office-bearers in my pocket. But please don’t make me read that. I will bring names in a few days in a way that everyone is satisfied,” he stated.
He similarly announced a 41-strong standing committee on August 17. But the members have yet to be officially informed about their appointment with Dahal not even issuing an intra-party circular informing formation of the standing committee.
He repeatedly postponed announcement of office-bearers and dropped a bombshell when he finally picked them.
Barsha Man Pun and Janardan Sharma are the most powerful second generation leaders in the party running their respective factions right down to the local level and were the strongest contenders for the post of general secretary. Many believed that one out of the two would be picked as general secretary and the ultimate heir to Dahal.
But Dahal tossed a googly and made Dev Gurung the general secretary and picked Pun and Sharma among seven deputy general secretaries.
A Maoist leader told Setopati that Dahal picked Gurung, who has almost no chance of eventually leading the party, as general secretary to continue his reign at the top. The leader claimed that popularity and ambition of Pun and Sharma were the main reasons for Dahal ignoring them, and added that by making Gurung the general secretary he has put a brake on their ambition thereby preventing them from eventually challenging him for party leadership.
He did not just snub the duo but rubbed it in, especially for Sharma. He has picked Giriraj Mani Pokharel, Barsha Man Pun, Haribol Gajurel, Pampha Bhusal, Shakti Basnet, Janardan Sharma and Matrika Yadav as deputy general secretaries ranking Pun second among the seven.
But Sharma has been ranked sixth among the seven with only Yadav ranked below him. Picking seven deputy general secretaries has meant there will be other challengers to Pun and Sharma for the post of deputy general secretary even in the next general secretary.
Pun has not complained much about the snub probably calculating that none among Senior Vice-chairman Narayan Kaji Shrestha, Vice-chairman Krishna Bahadur Mahara and the top-ranked Deputy General Secretary Giri Raj Mani Pokharel will eventually become party chairman. But Sharma has publicly expressed his displeasure and leaders close to him claim that he has rejected the post of deputy general secretary.
He introduced himself as chief of the non-existent organization department in a recent party program with Dahal also in attendance. He had urged Dahal to hold election for general secretary pointing that he would be happy even if he were to lose badly, and has now become critical of Dahal probably inferring that Dahal will not pick him as general secretary even in the next general convention.
Many leaders are also unhappy with Dahal due to his preference for family members. He recently nominated his youngest daughter Ganga Dahal and her husband Jeevan Acharya as central members.
His second daughter Renu Dahal is mayor of Bharatpur Metropolitan City and he has made his daughter-in-law Bina Magar federal minister in the past.
Ganga, who was a housewife until Dahal’s only son Prakash Dahal died, currently oversees Dahal’s secretariat. And many leaders complain that they cannot get to meet Dahal at his residence in Khumaltar nowadays without blessings of Dahal and Acharya who was not associated with the party in any way before his marriage to Ganga.
Dahal had also got his cousin Narayan Dahal nominated National Assembly member by President Bidya Devi Bhandari despite a few leaders proposing the name of Lekh Nath Neupane. Narayan has been associated with the party for a long time but leaders complain that he was made federal lawmaker merely because he is Dahal’s cousin.
Many leaders complain that Dahal has turned the revolutionary party with leaders who took up arms for the people into a bargaining tool for power. They are unhappy that Dahal announces alliance with CPN-UML (with promise of eventual unification) at one time and Nepali Congress (NC) at others merely to bargain for power thereby weakening the party to such an extent that it cannot even muster courage to contest the election on its own.
And his reluctance to groom successors, and the recent snub of Pun and Sharma—widely seen as his heirs—has led many leaders to fear that the Maoist party that Dahal built would be finished after his death.
