Nepali Congress (NC) President Sher Bahadur Deuba has failed to mend ways even in his second term after blatantly ignoring party statute in the first term.
Deuba has not held central committee meeting for more than a year--the grand old party is finally convening one on Tuesday after a gap of a year--and is not running the party in accordance to the party statute.
The grand old party had held the 14th general convention in December 2021. It had announced to hold policy convention within six months of the general convention but it has yet to start discussion for that. Deuba is statutorily required to appoint treasurer within six months of being elected president but he has yet to appoint one and has been handling the party finances all by himself.
He has also yet to nominate 10 central members out of the 33 a president can nominate to complete the central committee. He has also not been able to complete the party’s departments and committees, and sister organizations.
The party, meanwhile, is statutorily required to hold central committee meeting in three months but Deuba did not hold one for a year.
Deuba initially delayed the central committee meeting after CPN (Maoist Center) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal broke the erstwhile ruling coalition with NC and forged a new one with CPN-UML Chairman KP Sharma Oli on December 25, 2022 over Deuba’s refusal to make Dahal prime minister (PM) first as per the prior agreement to take turns as PM.
He was vehemently criticized inside the party including by those in his camp for his failure to save the coalition, and did not convene central committee meeting then fearing fierce criticism.
But he has been able to revive the coalition and got NC leader Ram Chandra Paudel elected the president of the country. But he did not convene central committee meeting even after that.
Deuba has failed to even assign responsibilities for the party office-bearers.
All the office-bearers except treasurer--who has to be nominated by the president from among central members--are elected through the general convention. But the party statute has specified duty and responsibilities of only the president, the general secretaries and the treasurer. Eight joint general secretaries have not been assigned any responsibilities by Deuba who has only appointed Prakash Sharan Mahat as the party spokesperson.
He has formed a working committee including office-bearers, former office-bearers and a few central members. But he has yet to complete even the working committee that he has been using to take decisions that should have been taken by the central committee. The working committee should have 46 members but it currently is only 37-strong.
The party statute requires formation of a central parliamentary committee to recommend and endorse party candidates for local, provincial and federal elections, but Deuba has yet to form the central parliamentary committee. He took decision about party candidates through the meetings of office-bearers and the working committee.
He has also yet to convene Mahasamiti meeting despite the party statute requiring it to be held once a year.
