Dahal pledges payment to YCL from Sunday

KIRAN PUN KATHMANDU, March 6: Maoist Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal on Monday assured the disgruntled members of the Young Communist League (YCL) that the party will begin from Sunday the process of distributing relief packages to them on par with PLA members, and also pledged to show the PLA´s financial accounts as per their demands. The embattled chairman of the Maoist party made such a pledge to the YCL on Monday in the presence of party leaders Netra Bikram Chand and Janardan Sharma, who have been tasked with holding talks with the YCL to address their problems. "The chairman told us that he will hold a meeting with us in the presence of the top office bearers and seven division commanders of the PLA on Thursday to finalize the size of the relief packages and show the finances of the PLA on Thursday and begin the distribution process from Sunday," said Dilip Prajapati, chief of the YCL Newa State, after participating in the meeting. Maoists had recruited the best of the PLA into the YCL in 2007 in an apparent bid to foment "urban insurrection" for "state capture", and instead sent the youths picked up from various places inside the cantonments. They have been demanding that the party provide them relief packages on par with the PLA members, who opted voluntary retirement with hefty paychecks or await jobs at the Nepal Army (NA) directorate, and show the money collected from the PLA personnel (Rs 1,000 each PLA personnel every months). YCL leaders say around 3,500 PLA members are still working for the YCL, while the rest either went abroad for employment or broke relations with the party or joined other political parties. It is still not clear how the party will fund such relief packages that will total billions of rupees, but Asal Khadka, YCL vice-coordinator at Magarat state, said the party can distribute the two billion rupees collected form the PLA which was meant for YCL. The YCL members had long been accusing the party leadership and the PLA commanders of embezzling the money collected purportedly for the YCL. They had threatened to encircle Dahal´s residence indefinitely from Tuesday onward if their demands were not addressed. from Republica English Daily newspaper