Senior leaders of CPN (Unified Socialist) have claimed that the dispute between party chair Madhav Kumar Nepal and senior leader Jhalanath Khanal has yielded a positive result, in that it helped clear the air between the two top leaders.

Party leader Pramesh Hamal said a meeting on Monday between the party chair, Nepal, and senior leader Khanal, held at the presence of other senior leaders Rajendra Pandey, Beduram Bhusal, Hamal himself, and General Secretary Ghanashyam Bhusal, made progress towards a settlement of disagreement between the two top leaders.

“The statement given by the senior leader of the party, Khanal, was distorted by the media,” Hamal said, without elaborating. “During today’s meeting, we resolved the misunderstanding arising from the media narratives.”

The meeting also agreed not to make the party’s internal matters public, even though ideological issues can be debated publicly. “Growing factional feuds will weaken the party, so the meeting has agreed to consolidate the party and give a positive message among party cadres,” Hamal said.

Party’s senior vice-chair Rajendra Pandey said the discussion went in the right direction. “Though the issue has not been completely settled, we are moving towards concluding the internal matter harmoniously,” Pandey said.

However, another leader Beduram Bhusal, a participant at the meeting, said that the discussion aimed at resolving the matter is in the initial phase.

The dispute between Nepal and Khanal took a serious turn after they started criticising each other in public. During a television interview two weeks ago, Khanal raised serious allegations against Nepal’s leadership style and even argued that the party leadership was failing to justify the grounds for splitting from the UML to form the new party in 2021.

Unified Socialist was formed on August 18, 2021, after splitting from the CPN-UML, the country’s largest communist party.

Khanal also had said that Nepal should relinquish his position as party chair because a corruption case has been filed against him in the Special Court. The Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) chargesheeted him in Patanjali land scam in June.

Former prime minister Nepal was subsequently suspended as lawmaker but he didn’t relinquish the position of the party chief.

Following Khanal’s remarks, Nepal went on to suggest that Khanal had better leave the party if he was not convinced of the objective of the party split.

Amid the allegations and counter allegations between the party chair and the second-in-command, both met on Saturday and discussed the matter.

They again sat on Monday along with other senior leaders.

Before this, Khanal and Bam Dev Gautam met on Saturday. Gautam joined Unified Socialist after being politically inactive since the party division in 2021.

“A few leaders expected to lead the party after the party chair faced the corruption case linking him to the Patanjali land scam,” a party leader said, hinting towards Khanal. “However, the issue is now in the direction towards settlement.”

Khanal, however, complained that, although he was trying to help party chair Nepal escape the corruption charges, some party leaders misunderstood his intention as an attempt to oust Nepal from power.

“Our party chair, Nepal, is facing a big corruption case, but how can we save him, make the case work in his favour? These are the questions I have always been thinking about,” Khanal said.

Khanal also clarified that his proposal in the party was not aimed at removing Nepal from his position.

“I floated the proposal after considering it carefully—it was about setting the standards a revolutionary party should uphold,” he said. “I have presented a Marxist proposal and one that sets a new precedent.”

Khanal argued that if anyone looked at his proposal as a move aimed to topple Nepal from power, or to act out of revenge, then that is sheer immaturity.

Due to the growing factional feud, the party also postponed the standing, politburo, and central committee meetings by 20 days. Earlier, the party had scheduled the standing committee meeting for August 20 to be followed by the politburo meeting on August 21, and the central committee meeting on August 23 and 24.