Around 100 dissident leaders of the Nepal Students’ Union (NSU), sister organization of Nepali Congress (NC), staged a sit-in at NC President Girija Prasad Koirala’s residence Monday, protesting ‘arbitrary’ nomination made by the party in the NSU leadership.

The cadres waved black flags and shouted slogans against the party leadership, especially party vice-president Sushil Koirala who is accused of handpicking his close men, and Dilendra Badu, convenor of the party’s coordination department.

The party on Sunday formed a new ad hoc committee under the presidentship of Mahendra Kumar Sharma as recommended by a probe panel formed to investigate the Pokhara episode of the union in which NSU factions fought with each other leading to the cancellation of the union’s 10th general convention.

The students, some of them handpicked in the new committee, blocked the entrance of Koirala’s residence where Sushil and Badu were holding a meeting with the party president.

The students demanded immediate dismissal of the new committee and announcement of a date to finish the business of the stalled Pokhara convention.

“Forming a new committee before making public the report of the probe committee on the failure of the Pokhara convention is in itself a gross violation of democratic norms,” report quoted Basu Koirala, general secretary in the dissolved committee as saying.

The students accused Sushil Koirala of disturbing the Pokhara convention of NSU with a conspiracy to handpick his henchmen.

Meanwhile, 28 college units in Kathmandu Valley, called on party president Koirala to make public the report of the committee headed by party treasurer Mahantha Thakur to probe into failure of the Pokhara convention, and hold the stalled general convention process in a democratic manner.