A meeting of the Nepal Communist Party Central Secretariat, which was expected to make headway on the unification of party’s subordinate committees, ended inconclusively on Wednesday. The meeting chaired by party Co-chairman and Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli called a follow-up meeting on Thursday.

According to Narayan Kaji Shrestha, a member of the party Central Secretariat, Wednesday’s meeting discussed on a wide range of issues concerning the unification of party committees but could not come to a conclusion due to time constraint. “We will take a call on committees at the provincial level tomorrow. The issue of district committees might take some time,” Shrestha told the Post.  

Though the erstwhile CPN-UML and CPN (Maoist Centre) had merged to form the NCP in the third week of May, the newly-established party has been facing difficulties to unify its subordinate committees. Sources say the party leadership is delaying the process as senior leader Madhav Kumar Nepal is unhappy with the selection of candidates to lead district committees. Of the 48 districts, where the erstwhile UML is set to obtain leadership, only 10 leaders close to Nepal have been recommended, causing a rift in the party.

During Wednesday’s meeting, NCP General Secretary Bishnu Poudel handed a report prepared by a task force formed to make necessary recommendations on the unification of committees at the provincial and district levels to Co-chairmen Oli and Pushpa Kamal Dahal.

Any decision that Thursday’s Central Secretariat meeting would take on province committees will be passed on to the 45-member Standing Committee meeting for deliberation and formal endorsement, Shrestha said.