"Thapa in hot seat"

In a surprise move, a group of Maoist lawmakers representing various ethnic and indigenous nationalities have demanded that the party’s General Secretary Ram Bahadur Thapa be given a chance to lead the next government.

On Thursday, 24 Maoist lawmakers led by the party’s politburo member Gopal Kiranti called on Maoist Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal and tabled their proposal.

Thapa, however, expressed shock over the proposal and said it came without any discussion with him.

“This proposal is a ploy to weaken the demand within the party for proper allocation of powers among the leaders,” a leader quoted Thapa as saying.

“Thapa is an eligible candidate for the prime minister, but the question is why has this come at this time” said Politburo member Devendra Poudel, a Bhattarai supporter.

“We proposed Badal because no one from the indigenous community has had a chance to become the country’s prime minister so far,” said a Maoist lawmaker who was in the lawmakers’ team led by Kiranti.

As a majority of the lawmakers supporting the proposal were close to Dahal, leaders from the Baburam Bhattarai and Mohan Baidya factions also said the move was directed by Dahal himself to subdue the demand for discussions on the allocation of responsibilities and powers among the leaders.

Party insiders said Thapa could likely be pitted against the party’s Vice-chairman Bhattarai, whose name has also been put up for the premier’s post.

The Baidya and Bhattarai factions, who have formed an alliance to end Dahal’s monopoly in the party, have demanded that the party chief shed some of his executive powers and pave way for a “collective leadership”. They have jointly demanded that Bhattarai be made the parliamentary party leader and Baidya the chief of the organisation department with full executive powers. An endorsement, if any, of the deputies’ demands would render Dahal virtually powerless.

In the face of growing strength of the two factions, Dahal has been deferring the crucial Central Committee (CC) meeting for the past few days, citing lack of time to prepare his political document on peace and constitution. The meeting is expected to sort out the differences among the top leaders.

While Dahal wants to discuss his political document on the party’s line of peace and constitution before anything else, his dissenting deputies have demanded that the issue of re-allocation of powers be discussed first