As Baburam Bhattarai, a former Maoist leader and former prime minister, bids to form a new party after his expulsion as a central executive committee member of the Janata Samajbadi Party, he has renewed efforts to build what he calls “socialist centre”.
On Tuesday, Bhattarai held talks with CPN (Maoist Centre) chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal.
Leaders familiar with the meeting said talks revolved around the possibility of forming a “socialist centre”.
“The two leaders basically discussed four issues—Dahal’s India visit, contemporary politics, possible electoral alliance and formation of socialist centre,” said Bishwadeep Pandey, a leader close to Bhattarai. “No concrete decision has been taken but leaders have said they would continue talks.”
Lately, Bhattarai and Dahal have held talks several times with a view to exploring the possibility of bringing all former Maoist leaders and other like-minded individuals under one umbrella.
Dahal and Bhattarai on Tuesday met for about an hour at the Parliamentary Party office of the CPN (Maoist Centre) in Singha Durbar.
According to Pandey, there are many leaders who wish Bhattarai to join his former party—the Maoist Centre. But Bhattarai has been demanding that the party should shed the Maoist and communist tags.
“We cannot rule out the possible merger with Dahal’s party but nothing concrete has come out yet,” Pandey told the Post.
Among Bhattarai’s followers there is a significant chunk of leaders demanding that he join the Maoist party while others have opposed the idea saying they should not return to become communists again.
Bhattarai, the architect of the decade-long “people’s war”, severed his ties with Dahal and the Maoist party days after the promulgation of the constitution in September 2015. Arguing that socioeconomic transformation is not possible by the traditional communist parties and the Nepali Congress, Bhattarai in 2016 formed Naya Shakti.
He, however, merged with Upendra Yadav’s Sanghiya Samajbadi Forum Nepal in 2019 to form Samajbadi Party Nepal, which in 2020 united with Rastriya Janata Party to form Janata Samajbadi Party.
Pandey, the leader close to Bhattarai, said Dahal will also hold discussions about the possibility of a socialist centre with other leaders in the ruling coalition including Madhav Kumar Nepal and Jhala Nath Khanal of the CPN (Unified Socialist).
After Tuesday’s meeting, Dahal told reporters that Bhattarai has said he would continue to be part of the ruling coalition even though he has quit the Janata Samajbadi.
The current ruling coalition is led by the Nepali Congress with Maoist Centre, Unified Socialist, Janata Samajbadi and Rastriya Janamorcha as partners.
Even though leaders of the ruling parties have said the coalition will remain intact at least through the upcoming elections, some backdoor meetings are also taking place for a left unity—or left alliance or a left front for that matter.
In the recently concluded Central Committee meeting of the Maoist Centre, Dahal had proposed formation of an alliance of forces minus the Congress and the CPN-UML. Nepal too had made a proposal at his party’s Central Committee about formation of a new leftist alliance.
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