NC rebels not joining Govt Insist on active membership settlement

October 18, 2000
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KATHMANDU, Oct 18 – The anti-Koirala camp of the ruling Nepali Congress (NC) today stated that they would not join the Cabinet until the dispute over the party’s active membership is settled.

“None of us are going to the Cabinet till the controversy over the active membership is resolved,” said Chiranjivi Wagle, pro-Bhattarai MP and former minister. “The agreement reached between the two leaders should be strictly followed. Nobody will go in the Cabinet till the points in the agreement are met.”

The points of agreement in the accord reached by the two leaders in August included resolving the dispute over the active membership of the party, cabinet reshuffle and reconstituting the Central Working Committee (CWC) of the party with equal members from both the Koirala and Bhattarai camps.

This comes only days after Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala asked his rival Krishna Prasad Bhattarai for the names of people to be inducted into the Cabinet. Bhattarai camp had, however, declined from providing the names as requested by Koirala which delayed the prime minister’s plan to reshuffle the Cabinet by Wednesday.

According to sources, PM Koirala has initiated talks with the pro-Bhattarai lawmakers after the camp refused to give the names. The lawmakers from the Bhattarai-camp have expressed their desire to get into the Cabinet, said sources close to the Prime Minister.

The source also said that the PM, however intends to wait for a few more days. Koirala has called for the meeting of the party’s Central Working Committee (CWC) next week, which is likely to discuss the active membership controversy.

Meanwhile, 14 NC lawmakers have today requested Prime Minister Koirala to stand for the party presidentship again during the 10th general convention of the party. All the MPs who have signed the press release are the district presidents of the party.

“We have requested Koirala to be the party president again since the nation needs a matured leadership,” said MP Shiva Kumar Basnet who is one of the 14 MPs.

Other MPs who have issued the request to the Prime Minister are -Krishna Prasad Sitaula, who is also a CWC member and Shiva Prasad Humagain, Hari Prasad Sapkota, Amiya Kumar Yadav, Farmullah Mansoor, Ramnath Adhikari, Smriti Narayan Chaudhary, Nagendra Ray, Mahendra Kumar Ray, Shankar Pande, Shukraraj Sharma, Lekh Nath Neupane and Arjun Joshi.

Responding to the release, Wagle said that the Prime Minister’s leadership has gone through enough tests and has proven to be unsuccessful. “But this is a nice debate and should deliver good results,” said Wagle.