KIRAN PUN
KATHMANDU, Dec 29: Amidst heated exchanges in the ongoing meeting of the Central Committee (CC), Maoist General Secretary Ram Bahadur Thapa said on Thursday that the party has already split and only awaits a formal announcement of this.
“There are rules and regulations even for regulating a joint front, but our party is left without any rules. The party has already split; it only awaits a formal announcement,” a CC member quoted Thapa as saying during the meeting.
Thapa, who has lately switched sides to the radical faction, argued that Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal and Vice-chairman Baburam Bhattarai, who is also the prime minister, are the major violators of party discipline.
“If the party is to be brought back onto the right track, disciplinary action should be taken against the chairman and the prime minister. The party and government leaderships are in the hands of compradors and rightist elements,” a party leader quoted Thapa as saying.
Thapa came down heavily on the chairman for not implementing the party´s “revolutionary decisions” and for dragging the party toward “rightist revisionism.”
The Maoist general secretary argued that rightist and regressive elements inside and outside the party have taken advantage of weakness among the revolutionaries in the party.
Launching lacerating criticism against Bhattarai, Thapa said: “The government is in the hands of compradors from the south.”
He also indirectly admitted that the party´s revolutionaries made a mistake in joining hands with Bhattarai during the Dhobighat meeting, which decided to push for Bhattarai as prime minister.
Bhattarai, for his part, defended the various agreements entered into by the current government, including the BIPPA signed with India, and argued that those moves were crucial for completing the peace and constitution-drafting process.
“The agreements reached with various actors were crucial for the completion of the peace and constitution-drafting process. Without good rapport with domestic and international power centers, the peace and constitution-drafting process would not be completed,” a party leader quoted Bhattarai as saying during the meeting.
Similarly, another party vice-chairman, Narayankaji Shrestha, who is also deputy prime minister in the current coalition, argued that the government and party leadership made a mistake in signing the BIPPA with India and in deciding to return seized lands to the owners without effecting revolutionary land reforms.
Shrestha also came down heavily on Dahal and accused the latter of speaking lies at the party CC meeting. “The chairman stated that the party made frequent attempts to launch a people´s revolt and failed to achieve the desired results. But the party has never seriously attempted to foment a revolt. He should not have spoken such lies,” a CC member quoted him as saying.
Shrestha appreciated Baidya´s “concern for revolution” and argued that the party should move ahead in a unified manner.
Similarly, influential party leader Netra Bikram Chand, who is close to Baidya, argued that Dahal betrayed the party leaders and cadres by presenting a political document that runs against the decisions of the Chunwang meeting, the Kharipati national conclave and the Palungtar plenum. “We were bought to Kathmandu from the base areas with a dream of revolution. But the chairman says the party should be where it is now,” a leader quoted Chand as saying.
The party hardliner argued that the major debate in the party is whether the party would adopt a revolutionary agenda or not. He argued that Dahal is losing his charm as leader and warned that the latter may share the same fate as Mohan Bikram Singh, the communist ideologue now reduced to a “political non-entity”.
He also stated that another “bourgeois class” has come into being from within the party and asked the party leadership to hand over their properties to the party organization. “The chairman should first hand over his property to the party and other CC members should follow suit,” Chand argued.
Amik Sherchan also argued that the party must move ahead in a unified manner. “We can adopt the Russian model of adopting two tactical lines and keeping the party unity intact,” said a leader quoting Sherchan.
The CC members are currently debating the separate political documents presented by Dahal and Baidya.
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