Grilled on graft, appointments, Nepal PM Prachanda faces open hostility at Maoists’ central panel meet




If the Central Committee meeting of Nepal’s ruling Maoist party is any indicator, Prime Minister and party chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ appears set for a tough time ahead in retaining firm control over the party and government.

This comes at a time the government has been facing Opposition heat in Parliament over the July 19 seizure of 100 kg of gold, soon after it was cleared by customs at the Kathmandu international airport.

At the five-day meeting of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre) that began Thursday, the Prime Minister has come under a barrage of criticism with some members raising accusations of corruption and nepotism, according to a participant.

“Why is your secretary a Dahal and that of the Home Minister a Shrestha?” asked OM Sharma, a Central Committee member and former press advisor to Dahal during his previous tenure as Prime Minister. He was referring to Dahal’s appointment of his daughter as his aide and Home Minister Narayan Kaji Shrestha making a close relative his secretary. One more member, Lakshman Panta, is learnt to have raised a similar question.

Another member demanded an investigation into the properties of Prachanda and senior leaders who have occupied posts in the government during the past 18 years after the Maoists joined the peace process and mainstream politics. “There is neo-feudalism being patronised by our leaders,” this member is learnt to have said.

Prachanda initially tried to go on the offensive as he presented his political and organisational report, asking members to not be too dependent on the leadership. But amid the stridently hostile stance of some members, his defenders are learnt to have switched to a conciliatory tone, requesting them not to defame the government and the party leadership.

“The anger and the tone is not unusual as the meeting that was supposed to be taking place at least twice a year is being held for the first time in 14 months,” said a member of the party’s central secretariat.

Much of the ire seemed directed against Shrestha, who is also Deputy Prime Minister, in the wake of a series of corruption scandals such as gold smuggling and trafficking of fake refugees in which the name of some political heavyweights has figured.

He is learnt to have asserted that the government would not spare any guilty person. But, according to insiders, some participants asked him to quit.

It appears the leadership had an inkling of the members’ mood and cancelled an earlier decision to have the entire proceedings telecast live following what another party, the Nepali Congress, recently did during its central panel meeting.