The spectacle unfolding around the Nepali Congress is, at best, a tragicomedy of elderly vanity, played out on the ruins of Nepal’s largest democratic force. As the Gagan Thapa-led party moves to gather around 7,000 delegates at Tundikhel for its 15th General Convention, ousted party chief Sher Bahadur Deuba remains dug in at his Chundevi base, staging a defiant parallel circus. Nepal’s grand old party, by operating as two bitter, parallel institutions—competing over ward conventions, squabbling over candidate fees, and hurling threats of expulsion—is committing public suicide. It is a spectacle as needless as it is disgraceful.

Factionalism is written into the very marrow of the Congress. The party’s post-revolution tour de force in 1951 was marred by the 1953 feud between B.P. Koirala and his half-brother Matrika Prasad, which splintered the movement. Half a century later, in 2002, Deuba himself executed a split from party president Girija Prasad Koirala over the dissolution of parliament. Yet, while earlier divisions sprouted from constitutional crises or executive authority, the 2026 split is a disgraceful episode triggered by senile spleen.

The current crisis flared up when Deuba, having promised to step aside after the Gen Z protests of September 2025, stubbornly refused to convene a general convention before the snap elections in March. When then General Secretaries Thapa and Bishwa Prakash Sharma mobilised over 60 percent of elected delegates in January 2026 for a special general convention to force an early transition, Deuba responded spitefully. He expelled Thapa and Sharma for five years and pettily scrubbed their photos from the party’s official Facebook page.

Today, despite both the Election Commission and the Supreme Court granting legal legitimacy to Thapa’s reformist faction, Deuba persists with his delusion. From Chundevi, he has launched separate ward conventions, compiled an exaggerated parallel membership log of over 700,000 individuals, and discounted the convention nomination fee to Rs30,000—a desperate Rs10,000 markdown against Thapa’s Rs40,000 rate—in a bid to buy off grassroots cadres.

What makes this intra-party warfare so thoroughly nauseating is its total lack of intellectual or policy substance. If Deuba and Thapa were locked in a debate over political or economic ideology and policy, one could grant them a modicum of respect. But there is no contest of ideas here. Both camps profess unyielding allegiance to democratic socialism. They share the same political outlook. This clash, therefore, is a naked, squalid struggle for patronage, candidate ticket distribution, and personal control over the party apparatus. 

To treat the Congress as a private fiefdom is to betray eight decades of historic sacrifice borne by its leaders. Lest we forget, this is the institution that launched the liberation campaign of 1950 to break the autocratic Rana regime, endured thirty years of banishment under the Panchayat system, spearheaded People’s Movement I in 1990, anchored the 2006 peace process, and delivered the 2015 Constitution. It carries the mantle of Nepal’s democratic movement. Yet, by prioritising internal survival, its leaders have paralysed the voice of the main opposition in the parliament as its moral authority wanes away each passing day.

The chief architect of this indignity, of course, is Deuba. At 80 years of age, Deuba has reached the natural eventide of his political life. There are no new ideas left in his arsenal, no fresh visions for a country. For a five-time prime minister to spend his twilight years presiding over a shrinking Chundevi clique—even as 31 of his former senior loyalists defect to Thapa’s fold—is pathetic. 

Deuba and his remaining sycophants must face the reality and step aside. A generational shift is already underway at the grassroots, where young cadres are consolidating ward leadership and rejuvenating membership drives. The courts have spoken, the delegates have spoken, and the electorate has delivered a scorching verdict. Deuba must abandon his parallel shadow-party, relinquish his suffocating grip, and urge his loyalists to enter the legitimate party under Gagan Thapa’s banner. History will cherish a leader who knows when to step off the stage. It will show no mercy to one who burns down the theatre on his way out.