In a bid to “settle” leadership issues, the CPN (Maoist Centre), a united force of Maoist parties led by Pushpa Kamal Dahal, has formed a 1099-member central committee (CC), which some, including some party leaders, say could turn it into a “leader-heavy party with a weak chain of command”.

A politburo meeting of the CPN (Maoist Centre) on Thursday decided to add 500 more members in the CC, fearing “rebellion” from lower-rung leaders. The party had announced a 599-strong CC during its announcement on May 19.

With 1,099 members in its CC, the third largest party now has six times more central members than the CPN-UML (184 including office bearers) and 13 times more than the Nepali Congress (85), the largest party in Parliament.

In its current size, the CC of the Maoist Centre is almost three times bigger than that of the Communist Party of China (CPC). The central committee of the CPC is currently composed of 205 full members and 171 alternate members.

The Maoist Centre has also decided to setup 255-member politburo and 85-strong standing committee.

A bloated CC might have addressed leadership issues to some extent as some leaders claim, but party Chairman Dahal and his associates are under fire from party cadres, sympathisers and civil society members for the move.

Former Nepal Police chief Rabindra Pratap Shah, who became a Constituent Assembly member under then UCPN (Maoist) quota, mocked at the decision describing it as a scheme to provide “one central committee member to one household”.

“After introducing one job per household scheme, here comes one household one central committee member scheme. It looks like 2073 is going to be a year of bumper schemes,” Shah wrote on his Facebook wall without mentioning the party’s name.

Some Maoist leaders said that formation of a bloated CC has muddied their role. “The chairman is in a bid to anoint everyone as central committee member to prevent the new party from falling apart,” a Maoist leader said.

“He is forgetting that all district level leaders will want to be promoted to the centre when you promote their contemporaries,” a politburo member said seeking anonymity. “The move has stoked fears that we will see a day soon when the party will have only leaders and no cadres,” added the leader.

Although Dahal was initially planning to command the party with the nine-member “headquarters” formed shortly after the announcement, he later went on to nominate members in the central committee following pressure from parties which merged with the CPN (Maoist) to give birth to the Maoist Centre.