On June 26, Madhu Acharya, a central working committee member of the Nepali Congress registered a plea at the party headquarters asking the leadership to convene a meeting of the central working committee which the party has not held for almost a year.

The last such meeting was held on July 11-18 last year.

And, as per Article 21 of the party charter, the central working committee should sit every two months. The central working committee’s tasks include taking decisions about participation in government, collaboration with other parties, criteria for ministerial appointments, and thrashing out party policy on various national political issues, among other things, according to the charter.

Dissident leaders in the party have been publicly accusing party president Sher Bahadur Deuba of running the party in an ad hoc manner.

Deuba’s aide and head of the publicity department, Min Bishwakarma, said they had planned to convene the meeting a long time ago, but could not owing to Deuba’s busy schedule. “The meeting is expected to be held in a few weeks.”

Besides the delay in convening the crucial meeting, the party has also failed to fill vacancies in various party departments and sister wings.

“We are working towards that end. Just yesterday [Wednesday], 400 new members were appointed in the Nepal Tarun Dal [Congress youth wing]. We will also fill vacancies in other sister organizations,” said Bishwkarma.

In the last one year, the party saw various ups and downs—it contested the elections, joined the government led by Maoist Centre chief Pushpa Kamal Dahal, suffered backlash in by-elections, and its leader and former home minister Bal Krishna Khand was charged in the Bhutanese refugee scam.

But the party has not officially deliberated on any of these issues.

A central working committee member requesting anonymity held party general secretaries Gagan Thapa and Bishwa Prakash Sharma responsible for the delay in convening the meeting. “We thought these young leaders were full of energy and enthusiasm. They should have coordinated with the party president to convene the meeting on time, but they haven’t,” he said.

“I don’t know the exact reason behind the delay in holding the central committee meeting. But if such crucial meetings become irregular then the party loses vitality,” Nain Singh Mahar, another central committee member said.

“It is the primary duty of the general secretaries to ensure that party meetings are held on time, but they have been failing in their duties,” said Mahar.

Congress leader and former general secretary Dr Shashank Koirala is among those extremely unhappy with the way the party is being run.

On June 15, speaking at a public function in Kathmandu, Koirala said the party has been ‘reduced to tatters and has lost the sense of direction.’ “All well-wishers need to think about ways to revive the party,” he said at the function.

But General Secretary Sharma outlined several reasons for the long delay in convening the central working committee.

“Soon after we concluded the last central working committee meeting, the party went to general elections and then there were coalition talks and power-sharing negotiations and then came the presidential elections. So all these things kept the leaders busy, hence the delay.”

“But now we are focussing on party matters. The long-standing vacancies in party bodies and sister wings will be filled and hopefully, the central committee meeting will be concluded by mid-July,” said Sharma.