Efforts have been made to again keep Nepali Congress (NC) leader Shekhar Koirala and General Secretary Gagan Thapa in the same group.
NC leaders including Arjun Narsingh KC, who is also father-in-law of Thapa, have been working to bring the two leaders together following deterioration in their relation having contested the last general convention from the same panel.
Koirala had lost the runoff for president to Sher Bahadur Deuba in the last general convention but Thapa was elected general secretary from Koirala’s faction.
But the relation between Koirala and Thapa has deteriorated two years on with the latter unhappy with Koirala for not consulting him while sending ministers to the federal government and making Kedar Karki chief minister of Koshi with support of CPN-UML. Thapa is also unhappy that he did not receive all the votes from the Koirala faction when he lost the election for NC parliamentary party leader to Deuba after the last general election.
Koirala had even stopped consulting Thapa before convening meetings of his faction in recent times. Koirala was criticized inside his faction for scheduling the latest meeting in Kathmandu for Tuesday when Thapa was scheduled to visit Janakpur. The faction held discussion on Tuesday and decided to postpone the meeting for Wednesday after that.
Koirala and Thapa had a brief conversation Tuesday after a long gap, according to an NC central member close to Koirala, at KC’s residence in Budhanilkantha on Tuesday.
“They cleared up misunderstandings. Both the leaders seemed ready to move forward holding dialogue,” the central member stated adding that Thapa has agreed to attend Wednesday’s meeting after the conversation.
The Koirala faction has called the meeting for discussion to form a collective position on mahasamiti meeting, National Assembly election and contemporary politics.
The grand old party has called meeting of central working committee for Friday. The anti-establishment faction has called its meeting with Deuba planning to decide about postponing mahasamiti meeting during the working committee meeting. Another meeting of Koirala faction at KC’s residence on September 3 had also discussed about bringing in another General Secretary Bishwa Prakash Sharma and central member Pradeep Paudel. But that has yet to materialize. Koirala had invited Sharma and Paudel to the faction’s meeting held in Baluwatar on September 19 but the duo did not turn up. Koirala had briefed the meeting that the two had pledged to attend the subsequent meetings.
Koirala and Thapa both apparently want to contest for president in the next general convention but they have yet to formally tell that to one another, and are preparing for the general convention in their own ways.
Thapa is preparing to propose the date of next general convention during the upcoming mahasamiti meeting.
