Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba on Thursday nominated eight leaders including lawmaker Chandra Bhandari and businessman Anil Kumar Rungta into the Central Working Committee of the party.

Krishna Prasad Paudel, chief secretary at the central office of the party, said they were nominated as per Clause 21(10) of the party statute.

As per the clause, the party president can nominate 33 people among central convention representatives who have been active in the party for at least ten years to the central committee.

Bhandari was a vice-president candidate from the Shekhar Koirala-led faction in the general convention held two years ago.

Deuba had earlier nominated other vice-presidential candidates— Vijay Kumar Gachhadar and Sujata Koirala—as central members soon after the convention but Bhandari was left out.

According to Paudel, leaders Man Bahadur Bishwakarma, Arjun Prasad Joshi, Shiv Prasad Humagain, Kiran Raj Sharma Poudel, Bharat Kumar Shah and Sharada Poudel have also been nominated as central members.

Leader Bishwakarma was a candidate for the joint general secretary from the Deuba camp in the general convention, while Joshi was defeated as the Gandaki province president.

Similarly, Shah, a candidate from the Deuba camp for the president of Lumbini Province, had lost the election. It’s Humagain’s second stint in the central committee. Poudel became a central member for the first time. She was a candidate for the central committee from an open category in the 2021 general convention.

With the addition of eight new members, the party’s central working committee is now 165-strong, two short of 167-member as provisioned in the party’s statute.