KATHMANDU, June 8: While the ruling Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) is actively preparing for its first general convention, Nepal’s oldest political force, the Nepali Congress (NC), is severely fractured by internal strife.
Caught in a brutal war of attrition where one side is actively trying to exhaust and weaken the other, the Grand Old Party is currently teetering on the edge of a formal vertical split.
The root of the current crisis traces back to the aftermath of the Gen-Z Movement on September 8 and 9. Since then, the party has remained sharply divided over the legitimacy of a special general convention held in January.
Dragged down by this deeply divided mindset, the NC faced a severe blow during the House of Representatives elections held on March 5, in which its presence was significantly reduced, limiting the party to just 38 seats in parliament.
Instead of reconnecting the shrunken party with the electorate after the election debacle, top leaders have remained locked in factional warfare over the special general convention, making the party even weaker.
The party President Gagan Kumar Thapa faction, which assumed party leadership through the special convention, faces intense criticism for being completely unready to accommodate and unite the rival faction that did not participate in the event
The Supreme Court (SC) recently upheld the Election Commission’s decision to recognize the special general convention, cementing Thapa’s legal grip on the party. Following the verdict, the disgruntled faction believes it is President Thapa’s sole responsibility to keep the party united, but they perceive that he is simply not ready to do so.
Special general convention of the party will be held after elec...
In fact, the dissatisfied group accuses the establishment faction of launching an active membership update drive as a strategic plot to completely capture the party ahead of the upcoming 15th General Convention. Questioning the current leadership style, one disgruntled leader asked how things were any different now if Thapa was only going to act as the leader of a specific group or clique.
Following the top court's ruling in favor of the special convention, President Thapa held separate meetings with veteran leaders Purna Bahadur Khadka and Shekhar Koirala. Insiders reveal that during these separate encounters, both Khadka and Koirala stated that the responsibility of keeping the party united now rested on Thapa's shoulders and requested him to bring forward a concrete proposal.
Thapa did not have a proposal ready during the meetings but promised to consult other leaders and return with a unity framework within a day or two. However, leaders close to Khadka and Koirala claim that over a month has passed with absolutely no such proposal being presented.
Instead of building bridges, Thapa allegedly fueled the fire by unilaterally nominating close allies to the Central Working Committee (CWC), a move that drew immediate dissatisfaction from Khadka and Koirala.
The disgruntled faction further claims that the establishment forced the heads of various sister organizations to resign, only to replace them with their own loyalists, concluding that the leadership has no genuine intention of maintaining party unity. The establishment faction, on the other hand, appears to be actively working on a strategy to pull rival leaders to their side one by one.
Conversely, several leaders who entered the CWC through the special general convention accuse the Khadka and Koirala faction of merely looking for excuses to split the party. The establishment claims that the veteran duo rejected their proposal to expand the CWC to accommodate the dissatisfied group before heading into the next convention.
A leader close to President Thapa argued that they were willing to expand the committee by honoring Khadka and Koirala as senior leaders alongside a few others, but they found the dissident demand to reinstate everyone elected from the 14th General Convention to be highly impractical and intentionally provocative.
To forge party unity, the non-participating faction has put forward a rigid set of counter-proposals. They demand the merging and adjustment of the CWC elected during the 14th General Convention with the one formed during the special convention. Furthermore, they insist that the Party Election Committee, Discipline Committee, and Active Membership Investigation Committee must be completely reconstituted with consensual representation from both sides. They also demand that a new date for the 15th General Convention be mutually agreed upon by both factions.
Additionally, the dissatisfied faction proposes that the upcoming convention should be conducted based on the previously finalized active membership and renewal lists, since that work was completed earlier.
They argue that new memberships should only be granted to those who joined around the elections or specifically requested renewals. However, they accuse the establishment of rejecting these demands and using the membership updates as a tool to forcefully push the opposing faction out of the party.
With the dissidents warning that they will take an alternative route if a concrete proposal does not arrive from the President by mid-June, political maneuvers have intensified. This prompted Vice President Bishwa Prakash Sharma to rush to meet Khadka on Friday. Reliable sources claim that during the meeting, Khadka told Sharma to have the President send a solid unity proposal within two days, but as of Sunday evening, Thapa has not met Khadka. A leader from the disgruntled faction noted that following the court's order, Thapa holds the official signature authority, meaning party unity is impossible unless he is willing, and as things stand, the party is moving toward a split rather than unity, a fate that will be sealed by the end of Jeth.
The dissatisfied faction is fully convinced that the leadership elected from the special convention is against party unity. Close insiders state that the party has only avoided a split so far because Khadka and Koirala have continuously stood in favor of keeping the NC whole. Warning that this patience is wearing thin under continuous neglect from the leadership, a leader remarked that if the two veteran leaders had been ready to form a new party, the NC would have split already, and this fragile situation will not last much longer.
If the establishment fails to initiate a solid proposal for unity, the rival faction is fully prepared to mobilize for the 15th General Convention on its own. They are currently looking for a physical space in Kathmandu to set up a parallel contact office.
Another leader from the opposition faction revealed that they are searching for an office space that can serve as their campaign headquarters for the 15th General Convention if they reach an agreement, or easily be converted into the central office of a brand-new political party if they do not.
The non-participating faction is also working hard to stand completely unified during the 15th General Convention. The same leader shared that their group is continuously trying to agree on a single, consensus candidate for the party presidency from among five or six of their top leaders.
After the SC granted official recognition to the Thapa-led committee, the Deuba faction, led by Sher Bahadur Deuba, and the Koirala faction had held collective discussions. However, rumors soon began circulating that the Koirala group was simply merging into the Deuba faction, causing Koirala to stop attending meetings with the other group. This shift has triggered deep suspicion and mistrust between them, leading them to explicitly refer to themselves as the committee elected from the 14th General Convention.
On the other side, the current leadership elected from the special convention harbors deep fears that if the old leadership, including Koirala, stands together in one place, the outcome of the next general convention could turn heavily against them. A leader claimed that the current establishment does not want genuine internal unity and is using the membership update drive to create a base of purely loyal workers to ensure the special convention's decisions are validated in the next main convention.
An office-bearer within the party admitted that although leaders from various active factions still meet, suspicion and distrust have completely overtaken any sense of mutual faith and reliance. The official added that the President does not seem to place full trust and confidence in the sitting office-bearers either, noting that while one or two individuals might not care, it is entirely natural for the rest of them to feel anxious and concerned about their own positions and political futures. The same official concluded that because every single office-bearer is currently working with only themselves at the center, the crucial task of uniting the party has been pushed down to the lowest priority.
