After the CPN-UML and the Rastriya Swatantra Party, the Nepali Congress is going to hit the campaign trail by declaring its president, Gagan Thapa, its prime ministerial candidate on Friday.

The party’s central working committee is set to convene at the party headquarters in Sanepa for the first time after Thapa was elected the Congress chief from its special general convention on January 15.

Friday’s meeting will declare Thapa as the Congress's prime ministerial candidate, General Secretary Uday Sumsher Rana told the Post. Thapa will take his chair at the party headquarters on Friday afternoon. Thapa, who had been contesting from Kathmandu-4, has filed his candidacy from Sarlahi-4 this time. Amaresh Kumar Singh of the RSP is Thapa’s major contender.

Thapa was elected party president unopposed even as the camp led by then-president Sher Bahadur Deuba boycotted the special convention initiated by the two general secretaries. Thapa’s fellow general secretary before the convention, Bishwa Prakash Sharma, is one of the party’s two vice-presidents now.

Deuba was elected the party president for a second term in 2021. The UML has already decided that its chairman, KP Sharma Oli, will be its prime ministerial candidate in a favourable post-election scenario.

Before heading into campaigning for the March 5 elections, the Rastriya Swatantra Party also declared Balen (Balendra) Shah its prime ministerial candidate. Shah, an independent who won the Kathmandu mayor position in the 2022 election, is one of the most popular Nepali politicians on social media. Shah has challenged Oli in his Jhapa-5 constituency.

Besides declaring Thapa its PM candidate, the Congress will make other decisions such as announcing the election mobilisation committee and the committee to draft its election manifesto, according to joint secretary general Prakash Snehi Rasaili. Sharma will head the central election mobilisation committee while Thapa will lead the manifesto drafting committee.

The newly elected central committee held its two meetings at a party venue in Kathmandu due to the factional dispute during the special convention. The Deuba faction had deployed members of the Nepal Tarun Dal on the office premises in Sanepa to bar Thapa and the new central committee members. The youths have now vacated the central office.

The Deuba faction, including the then acting president Purna Bahadur Khadka, even filed a writ petition at the Supreme Court demanding that the central committee elected by the special convention be stripped of the recognition given by the Election Commission.

The court has refused to issue an interim order as demanded.