Nepali Congress (NC) president Girija Prasad Koirala and president of breakaway Nepali Congress (Democratic) Sher Bahadur Deuba met in the capital, Kathmandu, Wednesday morning to discuss about party unity.

NC president G P Koirala
NC (Democratic) president Sher Bahadur Deuba
(File Photo)
According to NC sources, former premier Deuba called on his former political mentor, Koirala, at the latter’s residence at Maharajgunj along with NC (D) general secretary Prakash Man Singh.

After nearly an hour long meeting, Koirala told reporters that they discussed the issue of party unification. He stressed that unification of Nepali Congress was necessary to intensify the on-going peaceful movement for restoration of democracy.

Koirala said he would meet the former premier and senior NC leader Krishna Prasad Bhattarai to brief about the unification initiatives in near future. The issue would also be discussed in the central committee meeting of the party soon, he added.

Deuba, however, said that unification efforts would take time because there are some technical issues to be addressed. He said that the talks with Koirala was still in preliminary stage and that discussions would continue in the future.

One of the founders of NC, K. P. Bhattarai, had called on both Koirala and Deuba to work for unification of the party. Koirala on Sunday said that he would be discussing the issue with the breakaway faction. Deuba has been saying that his party was in favour of honourable party unification.

Then premier Deuba launched his own breakaway party four years ago shortly after the dissolution of the parliament amid intense intra-party wrangling.