Nepali Congress (NC) General Secretary Gagan Thapa has taken swipe at economist Swarnim Wagle who quit the grand old party to contest by-election from Tanahu-1 on ticket of Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP).
“I want to say—you have come after doing job, building house and earning pension. I have stayed and struggled getting hit by stones on the streets. Not because I could not go (abroad) or did not have competence,” Thapa said targeting Wagle—who worked for high-paying international organizations before joining politics—while addressing NC cadres after NC candidate Govinda Bhattarai filed nomination for the by-election on Monday.
Wagle texted NC leader Shekhar Koirala, General Secretaries Gagan Thapa and Bishwa Prakash Sharma and others, and told them that he was no longer with the grand old party led by Sher Bahadur Deuba and his wife Arzu.
Thapa took a swipe at Wagle for calling out NC after quitting it and pointed that one should stay and struggle inside Congress to change the party. “My question is not because you quit. But I will also question why you quit if you question me for staying here.”
He conceded to the party cadres, especially the youths, that not everything was right with NC and much had to be changed. “But will Congress change by kicking it and smashing the windows saying Congress is bad from outside? We should fight inside to change Congress. Should struggle. We must struggle.”
