For over a month and a half, Nepali Congress, the largest party in the dissolved House of Representatives, has been debating whether to conduct its party convention before or after the snap elections slated for March. The issue has had the two factions inside the party—the establishment camp led by Acting President Purna Bahadur Khadka and the rival camp led by senior leader Shekhar Koirala and general secretary duo Gagan Thapa and Bishwa Prakash Sharma—sharply divided. The party also remains undecided whether to organise a special convention or a regular one.

Amid this, Congress has now found itself wrestling with a third debate—whether to support the calls for the restoration of the House, which was dissolved soon after former chief justice Sushila Karki was appointed the prime minister on September 12, on the back of the youth-led protests, which have come to be known as the ‘Gen Z uprising’.

Currently, the case against House dissolution is under consideration at the Supreme Court. The top court had received 10 petitions challenging House dissolution the day it resumed limited service after a hiatus of over a month as its buildings were burned down by the protesters during the unrest.

After Chief Justice Prakash Man Singh Raut, during a recent hearing, questioned if lawmakers felt House dissolution was unconstitutional, why do they not register a petition at the Supreme Court, leaders inside the Congress and UML started a signature campaign for the cause quietly.

President Ramchandra Paudel had dissolved the House upon the recommendation of Prime Minister Sushila Karki according to the demands of representatives of Gen Z protesters. Elections were then announced for March 5.

Since then, Nepali Congress had stood in favour of elections but termed House dissolution an unconstitutional move.

Meanwhile, the CPN-UML, the second largest party in the dissolved House, has opposed the dissolution and demanded its restoration.

Calls for House restoration within Congress had not been so overt.

Amid this, some Nepali Congress lawmakers on Saturday organised a gathering in Kathmandu and decided to launch a signature campaign in favour of House restoration. They have aimed to pressure party leadership to stand in favour of House restoration officially. “With limited mandate and limited time, the dissolved House can be restored so that we can address the demands of Gen Z and agendas like constitution amendment, among others,” one Congress lawmaker told the Post.

After some Congress leaders started the signature campaign, without the party’s official decision, Congress General Secretary Gagan Thapa issued a video message on Monday and asserted that Congress’s priority at the moment is election, not House restoration.

On the other hand, some UML leaders have also urged Congress lawmakers to put pressure inside the party for House restoration so as to embolden their cause and influence the Supreme Court, which is currently hearing the case against the dissolution.

However, a Congress lawmaker said that no decision has been taken yet to knock on the door of the Supreme Court to file a petition on behalf of lawmakers of the dissolved Parliament.

Chandra Bhandari is one of the former Congress lawmakers who supports calls for House restoration. In a conversation with the Post, Bhandari said that the House should be restored for a limited period to discuss five specific agendas for constitution amendment.

“First, we have to revisit the current provincial structure,” Bhandari said. “We should strengthen the local bodies by giving them more resources; the elected representatives in all local bodies should be unaffiliated to any political party; the structure of the federal government should be changed; and we have to revisit the current provisions of selecting lawmakers under the proportional representation category.”

It now appears that Congress will witness a heated debate on the issue at the ongoing central working committee meeting of the party and the party's leadership will be forced to form a position regarding it.

Two former lawmakers from Congress told the Post that they are in discussion with UML lawmakers to file a petition in the Supreme Court jointly. If the party doesn’t take an official decision on this matter, they could go to the court as individuals and file a petition, they said. “We will wait and see.”

“Given the crisis that the country is facing, we have to change the constitution,” one of the former lawmakers told the Post. “We should amend the constitution by incorporating the grievances of the people, and only then should we go to the elections.”

Regarding his proposed five-agenda proposal, Bhandari said that these are not UML’s demands. “These are the messages of the Gen Z movement and the requirements of the country,” Bhandari said. “If we are able to do this, then we can go to the elections. Our neighbouring countries and well-wishers should understand this reality. The coming elections, in this present scenario, will have a very fractured mandate as no party will gain the majority. Which means we will face problems in constitution amendment and government formation. Hence, we started the signature campaign, reckoning House restoration is the best option.”

Those involved in the signature campaign said that as many as 40 lawmakers out of 87 have already stood in favour of House restoration. But the majority of the Congress top leaders have been advocating for elections. Since party president Sher Bahadur Deuba is currently undergoing treatment in Singapore, it is not clear whether he has backed the signature campaign.

Speaking to the Post, Shyam Ghimire, the chief whip of the party in the dissolved House, said that they had launched the signature campaign since Nepali Congress Central Work Execution Committee meeting had already declared the dissolution of the House unconstitutional and undemocratic. “The signature campaign seeks to urge the party to take political and legal steps toward restoring the House,” he said. “The party has not yet decided how to move forward on this issue. But it must soon make an institutional decision regarding the restoration of Parliament.”

Ghimire added that their campaign has nothing to do with UML’s campaign for the same purpose.

“There’s a difference between the signatures collected by the UML and the ones we collected,” he said. “The UML is gathering signatures to go to court, while we collected them only to pressure the party to remain united.”

Once the House is restored, Ghimire said, the process of amendment in the constitution, given the broader political agreement, can be completed within one week to 15 days.

Meanwhile, there is a parallel campaign ongoing inside Congress in favour of elections. Some Congress leaders like General Secretary Gagan Thapa, former deputy prime minister Prakash Man Singh, and central working committee member Nain Singh Mahar on Monday stood in favour of the elections slated for March. Thapa, while issuing a video message on Monday, said that the election scheduled for early March will bring a new parliament and “also set the current constitution on the right path.”

Likewise, taking to Facebook, Thapa said that conducting the election in March “is the only way to bring the constitution back on the right track.”

“There is no confusion about this,” Thapa wrote. “I have already presented my view on the matter during the all-party meeting held in the presence of the prime minister, clearly conveying the Nepali Congress’s decision. The dialogues and confusions [in the Congress] today are about its convention, not about the election.”