Twelve youth leaders of the Nepali Congress on Tuesday urged party President Sher Bahadur Deuba to scrap his decision to form various party departments.

Despite repeated warnings from rival factions led by Ram Chandra Poudel and Krishna Prasad Sitaula, Deuba has kept on forming party departments. He has nominated over 668 cadres for them as of Monday. The party has already announced to hold its general convention in February, 2021.

By Tuesday, Deuba has formed 15 departments in spite of strong opposition from party members. The party’s code of conduct bars any nomination after announcement of the date for general convention.

The youth leaders mostly belong to the Poudel and Sitaula factions of the party. They urged Deuba to respect the party charter and withdraw the nominations made for various departments and end the culture of factional politics, according to a joint statement.

The signatories are Chandra Bhandari, Dhanraj Gurung, Gururaj Ghimire, Gagan Thapa, Badri Pandey, Ratna Serchan, Pradip Poudel, Jeevan Pariyar, Ram Krishna Yadav, Kiran Yadav, Sarita Prasai and Kamala Pant.

At a time when the conventions of various party committees have been scheduled, the formation of departments has raised serious questions over the impartiality of the general convention, they said.

Since the party president is the patron of the party charter, he should respect it and make others comply with the rules, the Congress leaders said. It is the role of party President Deuba to maintain democracy within the party and to ensure that the party follows the system. They argue that Deuba should make the leadership handover process acceptable to all.

The party charter allows a maximum of 50 members in one department. Deuba is preparing to form seven more departments soon, according to Congress leaders.

If the Poudel faction does not come to a consensus, Deuba is preparing to form all 42 departments unilaterally. In the process, he’ll assign roles to over 2,200 party leaders, a central member said. Poudel can object to the delay in forming the party departments but he cannot stop the process, the leader said.

As per the party charter, all the departments should have been formed within six months of the general convention, which was held in 2016. However, Deuba never formed them on time but rushed to set them up after the term and mandate of the Central Working Committee was extended by one year for holding the party’s 14th general convention.

When Poudel and other leaders urged Deuba to stop the nominations, Deuba reportedly said that he was following the footsteps of Girija Prasad Koirala and Sushil Koirala, arguing that they had done the same.

The party president is not a person; it’s an institution, the NC youth leaders stressed. “Deuba does not have the luxury to skip and bypass the system, and the party’s legacy and tradition,” they said, asking Deuba to stop promoting factionalism in the party.