The five-day long central committee meeting of the ruling CPN (Maoist Centre) concluded on Sunday with a renewed commitment to ‘invigorating’ the party by reaching out to the grassroots.

The ruling party’s decision to launch a grassroots campaign comes at a time when Maoist leaders and cadres have been accusing the party top brass of focusing only on power, resulting in the party’s decline to a distant third from the largest party in 2008.

In order to strengthen the declining organisational base of the party, the central committee has taken a number of decisions—organising party’s statute convention within four months to bring down the existing committees to double-digit number, holding special convention to clear ideological confusion and organising a three-month campaign to reach out to the people and listen to their complaints.

The meeting decided to launch the three-month-long ‘Maoists with people, special transformation campaign’ starting September 2.

“During the campaign, we will visit every household, not only the well-wishers of our party, but supporters of other parties also, and discuss our attempts at good governance, social justice and prosperity,” a leader quoted Dahal as saying in his concluding speech. “Listen to their criticism and also meet the families of the martyrs and those disappeared during the people’s war.”

According to leaders, Dahal has termed the first three months campaign as the first battle and the second three months campaign as the second battle and the upcoming general elections as the war.

The party has decided to hold the statute conference by mid-December after concluding the three-month campaign on December 2.

“After the statute conference another three-month campaign will be organised and then the party will organise the special convention with the conclusion of the campaign,” said Lekhnath Neupane, a central member. “However, the dates for the campaign and the special convention are yet to be finalised.”

Party chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal, who is also the prime minister, and senior vice-chair Narayan Kaji Shrestha, who is also the deputy prime minister and home minister, have told the meeting that they would stay at seven each wards in the three months campaign.

The campaign will be inaugurated at all the 6,743 wards of the country on September 2.

Speaking at the meeting two deputy general secretaries—Janardan Sharma and Barshaman Pun, who are considered the most powerful leaders after the party chair—had criticised the chairman for failing to groom new leadership to replace him.

Party chair Dahal told the meeting that the communist movement was not like the one which used to be during the time of Marx and Angels and therefore the classical approach does not work now.

“It’s the time of globalisation in which the development of information technology is at its peak. We are in search of Marxism, which we cannot get from the classical way,” a leader quoted Dahal as saying. “Baidya’s classical way didn’t work. Even Baburam, who is saying there is no significance of communists, has also failed. So, we are on the right path.”

The central committee has also changed the responsibilities of the party’s office bearers.