KATHMANDU, NOVEMBER 21
CPN-UML Vice-chair Bhim Rawal organised a press conference and announced his candidature for party presidency. The UML is set to elect its central party leadership in the next general convention scheduled from November 26 to 28 in Chitwan district.
It is yet to be seen how the establishment faction, which is trying to elect current Chair KP Sharma Oli again to the top post, will take the disgruntled leader’s candidacy. Rawal was close to Madhav Kumar Nepal in the past, but left Nepal to join the Oli camp when Nepal split the party to form the CPN (Unified Socialist).
Rawal has accused Oli of not honestly implementing the 10-point proposal, but the Oli faction has said that the party had implemented a large part of the proposal. Rawal is miffed at Oli for not allowing him to lead the UML’s Sudurpaschim chapter as he had done before the UML’s merger with the CPN-Maoist Centre in 2018.
Rawal said at the press conference that he wanted to announce his candidacy for party president from the party’s central office, but the party did not let him do so.
He said his candidacy for the top party post was in accordance with the 10-point consensus and he favoured the 10-point agreement to promote party unity and reject factionalism.
He said the party neither implemented the 10-point proposal nor did it enforce the internal party directives.
Non-enforcement of the 10-point proposal and internal party directives could adversely impact the party’s prospects in the upcoming general elections and the party’s objective of maintaining unity and understanding within the party.
Rawal said Nepal was witnessing adverse effects of powerful countries jockeying for influence in the Indo-Pacific region. Rawal claimed that while the executive was unstable, legislature was inactive, and the judiciary was acting arbitrarily.
“Things did not move ahead in the UML as per my wishes, but that did not mean that I should remain inactive,” he said, adding that he decided to contest the party’s top post to protect the UML’s principles.
Rawal also listed 15-point values that he said he would seek to protect and promote if he became the party president. He said he would seek to repeal Nepal’s unequal treaties signed with other countries and implement the party’s policies. He said the UML needed to have a new leadership that could act on the priorities set by the party’s statutary convention.
UML Central Committee member Surya Thapa, who is close to Oli, said Rawal had the right to contest for the top UML post, but his candidacy would not pose any challenge to Oli. Rawal’s candidacy poses no challenge to Oli.
A version of this article appears in the print on November 22, 2021, of The Himalayan Times.