Kathmandu, September 11
The main opposition party, Nepali Congress, is highly likely to postpone its 14th national general convention scheduled for February 2021.
Whereas there are many internal reasons for the party president Sher Bahadur Deuba to propose a deferral, the party is preparing to cite the Covid-19 outbreak as the factor that made it impossible to hold the convention on time.
Deuba has assigned his confidant and the party’s vice-president, Bimalendra Nidhi, to talk to Ram Chandra Paudel, Deuba’s archrival in the party, about calling a central working committee meeting to make an official decision to defer the convention. Accordingly, Nidhi has already met Paudel.
Party insiders say the party is likely to make a decision about the postponement in the last week of September.
The four-year term of Deuba-led committee elected in 2016 had expired in February this year. However, the party extended the term by one year citing ‘special circumstances’ as allowed by the party statute. The constitution also requires a political party to elect a new leadership every five years, but again it has a clause that allows a six-month extension. Now, Deuba wants to take advantage of the same clause.
Meanwhile, the leaders who were pressing the party for an early convention have expressed their dissatisfaction over the leadership’s preparation to defer the convention.
