A Standing Committee meeting of the Nepal Commmunist Party has decided to recommend disciplinary action against party chair and Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli.
“A proposal to this effect will be taken to the meeting of the Central Committee scheduled for Tuesday,” Pampha Bhusal, a Standing Committee member, told the Post.
The decision of the Standing Committee meeting, which was skipped by Oli and some other members loyal to him, took place in Baluawatar on Sunday evening, hours after President Bidya Devi Bhandari dissolved the House of Representatives on the recommendation of the Oli Cabinet.
The Standing Committee has not made it clear what kind of action it is proposing against Oli.
Oli’s move of dissolving House comes on the heels of a deepening crisis in his Nepali Communist Party where he has slid into the minority with the opponent faction led by Pushpa Kamal Dahal, Madhav Nepal and Jhala Nath Khanal demanding his resignation for failing on the governance front and to abide by party decisions.
In the 44-member Standing Committee, the Dahal-Nepal faction controls the majority.
Oli was elected prime minister in February 2018 after the alliance of his CPN-UML and Dahal’s CPN (Maoist Centre) was handed a majority in the 2017 elections. The two parties had merged in May 2018 to form the Nepal Communist Party.
But rising tensions in the party had threatened Oli’s chair.
In November 1994, then prime minister Girija Prasad Koirala of the Nepali Congress had dissolved the House. After that, then CPN-UML’s Manmohan Adhikari had formed a minority government. But Adhikari too had attempted to dissolve the House, only to be challenged at the Supreme Court which restored the Parliament.
Sunday’s Standing Committee also condemned Oli’s move of dissolving the house, saying it is unconstitutional and undemocratic.
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