Delay in Cabinet pick as NC camps engage in blame game

KATHMANDU, MAY 08 -

With the rival factions indulging in the blame game, factional feud within the Nepali Congress has delayed the party’s nomination of remaining ministerial candidates for the Baburam Bhattarai-led consensus government.

While leaders loyal to senior leader Sher Bahadur Deuba accuse President Sushil Koirala of acting in an autocratic way within the party, those from the establishment camp attribute the standoff to Deuba’s greed for power and position.

The Deuba faction has said that having ministerial candidates from their camp is not their concern and interest. According to leader Prakash Saran Mahat of the Deuba camp, their disagreement is not with the ministerial candidates but the way they were picked unilaterally by the president.

Mahat also said that they wanted to have all the contentious issues of the constitution settled through a mutual understanding among parties before hurrying to join the government.” Our party president neither took this seriously nor made any concrete efforts to settle many issues that we have long been raising including that of sister organisation,” he added. The failure to practice what he pledges is the chief flaw of Koirala, said Mahat.

On the other hand, the Koirala loyalists dismissed such allegations against the president as mere gestures of restlessness and immaturity. “Deuba talking of party rules and regulations is simply ridiculous. He has no concern about party’s welfare…he is simply concerned about personal gains,” said NC leader Manbahadur Biswokarma, a Koirala confidante.

A source close to the establishment faction said the party leadership is holding informal talks with the dissident faction. Besides Koirala and Ram Chandra Poudel, Deputy Prime Minister Krishna Prasad Sitaula is actively involved in the move to patch up differences, the source said.

Leader N P Saud of the dissident faction said they are waiting for the establishment camp’s move and that Deuba was ready to talk with Koirala if the latter was serious about it. Of late, Deuba and Koirala have stopped having one to one meetings.