KATHMANDU, Feb 25: The central working committee (CWC) of Nepali Congress (NC) has endorsed the party's new statute, revising some of the key provisions decided by the party's Mahasamiti meeting two months ago.
A CWC meeting on Sunday endorsed the provision to automatically elect the party's CWC members as general convention representatives through majority votes as rival faction opposed such provisions. The new statute also does not include provision to provide reservation privilege to those entitled to it only once in each tier of the party's organization as agreed during the Mahasamiti meeting.
Party President Sher Bahadur Deuba had expressed commitment to address the demands of Mahasamiti members to ensure that all CWC members are elected from the local level itself and provide reservation privilege to those entitled to it only once in each tier of the party's organization.
NC Spokesperson Bishwa Prakash Sharma told media that the statute endorsed earlier by the Mahasamiti meeting was endorsed through a democratic process through the CWC meeting.
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However, several CWC members including Ram Chandra Paudel, Krishna Prasad Sitaula, Ram Sharan Mahat, Dilendra Prasad Badu, Nabindra Raj Joshi, Arjun Narasingh KC and Gagan Thapa have written note of dissents, alleging that the party leadership had breached the commitment made before the Mahasamiti meeting.
“We have written note of dissent,” KC said. Leaders close to Paudel and Sitaula factions had put forth alternative views in the meeting.
On the issue of Hindu state as well, the CWC meeting could not stand united. CWC members Shanker Bhandari, Chandra Bhandari, Devendra Raj Kandel, Pushpa Bhusal and Dilendra Prasad Badu, among others, demanded that NC should stand in favor of a Hindu state, while other CWC members had argued that NC cannot stand in favor of one particular religion as it is the organization of all religious groups.
Except for a few provisions endorsed by the Mahasamiti meeting, the CWC meeting endorsed all others provisions already endorsed by the Mahasamiti meeting. In a major organizational restructuring, the Mahasamiti meeting had decided to expand the size of its Central Working Committee to 161, with a provision to elect directly all office bearers except the treasurer, through a general convention.
The statute endorsed has provisions for directly electing the president, two vice presidents, two general secretaries and two joint general secretaries. This significantly curbs the discretionary powers that the elected president enjoyed hitherto when forming the office bearers' body.
Currently, the NC office bearers' body comprises a president, a vice president, two general secretaries, a joint general secretary and a treasurer. While the president, one of the two general secretaries and a treasurer are directly elected through the general convention, the elected president nominates his vice president, a general secretary and a joint general secretary, allowing him/her to easily secure a majority in the party's crucial body.
However, even after the new statute comes into effect, the elected president will still have the right to pick a treasure from among the elected CWC members. Among other things, various new clusters have been added to elect CWC members from different groups of people and there is a provision to elect three members including one woman to the new CWC from each of the seven provinces.
Besides the new statute, the CWC meeting on Sunday endorsed the political paper presented by Vice President Bimalendra Nidhi, a separate proposal presented by Joint Secretary duo Dr Shasank Koirala and Purna Bahadur Khadka and financial proposal presented by Treasurer Sita Devi Yadav and economic policy paper presented by Joint General Secretary Prakash Sharan Mahat.
