The merger of lower committees of the ruling Nepal Communist Party (NCP) has been pushed back further as the party’s secretariat fails to resolve the leadership row.

While the party secretariat has assigned two top leaders—Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli and Co-chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal—to finalise the criteria, leaders said merger would take more than a month to complete.

Oli and Dahal were tasked with finalising the merger criteria after a two-day meeting of the party secretariat failed to resolve the issue. The two leaders were supposed to discuss the issue on Friday but the meeting did not take place.

Party leaders said serious discussion on the lower committees’ merger will take place only after both the leaders return from their foreign trips. Dahal left for a five-day China visit on Saturday. While returns on September 19, PM Oli will leave for New York to attend the 73rd United Nations General Assembly on September 22.

The erstwhile CPN-UML and the CPN (Maoist Centre) merged to form the NCP in May, after the two left forces won a near two-thirds majority in an electoral alliance last year.

While there are internal disputes between the leaders over the process, some NCP leaders charge Oli and Dahal with not showing enough seriousness for completing unification.

The meeting of the party’s standing committee, called to finalise the merger process, has been postponed three times. Both Oli and Dahal have their own reasons for the delay. Oli on Saturday said reactionary forces were working to create a rift between him and Dahal. Addressing the fourth Post Bahadur Bogati memorial day at the NCP headquarters Dhumbarahi, Oli said, “Reactionary forces are attacking the party and the government and they should be countered in a unified manner.”

Talking to journalists at the Tribhuvan International Airport before leaving for China, Dahal said, “Merger of the lower committees will complete before Dashain.”

The party has failed to finalise the lower committees’ merger as leaders close to Madhav Nepal have blamed PM Oli of unilaterally recommending the candidates to head the lower committees. There are disputes in many districts where former UML and Maoist Centre leaders are competing for leadership, according to party sources.

Leaders claimed that seniority, ability and spirit of unification would be the major bases for selecting new leadership.

The two chairs were also tasked with selecting those in charge, their deputies, chairpersons and secretaries. The party has already adopted the policy of “one leader one position” in order to end dual responsibility for a single cadre and to manage a large number of aspirants.

With no committees to monitor and support party activities, local people’s councils have failed to deliver.

While announcing the merger of the two major communist parties on May 17, top NCP leaders had promised to unify all the lower committees within three months. But the process is expected to take one more month.