In a bid to ensure consensus leadership, the last Central Committee meeting of the CPN-UML held at Sauraha late on Friday night decided to increase the number of members in the new Central Committee that will be elected on Sunday.

According to Sher Bahadur Tamang, secretary of the party's central secretariat, now there will be 301 members in the Central Committee.

The statute congress of the party held on October 1-3 at Godavari had decided to elect a 225-member Central Committee.

The Friday night’s meeting has also decided to elect 19 office bearers instead of 15.

Now there will be one chair, seven vice-chairs including one senior vice-chair, one general secretary, three deputy-general secretaries and seven secretaries.

The meeting increased two vice-chairs and two deputy general secretaries.

Similarly, according to Tamang, there will be a 45-member Standarding Committee and a 99-member politburo.

Earlier, there was no provision of politburo as it was scrapped by the statute convention.

"The Central Committee has taken this decision to ensure that the leadership of the party is elected through consensus," said Tamang.

The last Central Committee meeting has also decided to allow the leaders to contest for the same position of the party for three times which was earlier limited to two times only.

Since there are a large number of aspirants for the posts of office bearers, party chair Oli is having a tough time managing them.

The UML’s 10th national congress began on Friday in Chitwan. The three-day jamboree will be end on Sunday by electing a new leadership for the medt five years.