No sooner the meeting started at Oli’s residence in Balkot than party’s Deputy General Secretary Ghanshyam Bhusal demanded either to call such meeting in the party headquarters in Balkhu or call it off if Chairman Oli was not keeping well. “Otherwise, it does not look nice to hold a party meeting in leaders’ houses,” Bhusal reportedly said. Leaders loyal to Nepal had suggested to defer the meeting after party General Secretary Ishwor Pokhrel tried to propose work division of the top leaders. “We had agreed to table the proposal on work division at the Standing Committee only after discussions at the central secretariat.

The proposal should be discussed at the secretariat before taking it to the committee,” said Bhusal. Based on negotiations among the leaders from both the factions, General Secretary Pokharel is said to be preparing to name Prithivi Subba Gurung as the party’s organisational department head; Bishnu Rimal as Finance Department chief; Pradeep Gyawali as secretary at the Central Secretariat. Similarly, Pokharel has reportedly proposed Bhim Acharya or Yogesh Bhattarai as head of the publicity and publication department. The Nepal faction is, however, not amused with the proposal as except for Acharya and Bhattarai, all other leaders are from the Oli faction. Party Secretary Gurung said the work division could be decided at next meeting scheduled for Monday.

The UML has been struggling to allocate work division of top leaders for the last nine months after the leaders from the two factions demanded to name their men to the party’s key position.

Youth Association splits

KATHMANDU: Youth Association Nepal, the youth wing of CPN-UML, split into two on Sunday after a group of disgruntled leaders loyal to the party’s leader Madhav Kumar Nepal formed a separate committee under youth leader Dilu Panta.

The move of the Nepal loyals followed the decision of youth leaders close to party Chairman KP Sharma Oli to hold national gatherings in Hetauda against the party directive not to hold parallel gatherings. The committee said it would launch a three-month nationwide campaign to gain foothold across the country.

Panta said the new coordination committee would intensify ideological debate across the country to strength the organization ideologically. The UML youth wing was embroiled in a factional feud following the appointment of Niru Pal as its chairperson.

Pal, who is an Oli supporter, got the YAN’s top post after the incumbent Mahesh Basnet was appointed a minister.