Kathmandu, May 4
The CPN-UML on Thursday has clarified that the party decided to partner up with the Rastriya Prajatantra Party to prevent itself from attacks from various directions.
Speaking with journalists at the party headquarters in Dhumbarahi of Kathmandu today, UML General Secretary Ishwar Pokharel said forming alliances with parties on the basis of agreements on local agendas was natural during local level elections.
After the Communist party formed alliance with the pro-monarchy RPP in many places including Kathmandu and Lalitpur metropolitan cities, it has drawn flak from various quarters within the party.
“Our major rival is Nepali Congress. After it attacked us by forming unnatural bonds after leaving the ideological grounds,” Pokharel explained, “We have tried to bring the forces which agree with our agendas quite close to us so as to defend the attacks.”
Pokharel claimed that the RPP was more nationalist than the NC in agendas of national independence, prosperity and territorial integrity.
“Devoid of its principles, the Congress has submitted itself to ethnic and regional extremist forces. We have partnered up with a patriotic democratic force.”
On the occasion, party Secretary Yogesh Bhattarai clarified that the UML-RPP alliance was just a strategy to defend the party from alliances formed against it.
He, however, maintained that the party was open to an alliance with any party including the NC and the CPN-Maoist Centre.
Local committees have been given the freedom to take appropriate decisions, he informed.
