The Nepali Congress (NC) and CPN (Maoist Centre) meeting in Baluwatar on Wednesday night reached an informal agreement to revive the pre-election coalition.
The formal agreement will be reached on Thursday night after holding talks with other parties in the ruling coalition at the time, according to a Baluwatar source.
The meeting included top leaders from both parties, including NC Chairman Sher Bahadur Deuba and Maoist Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal.
Dahal informed the meeting that the cooperation with CPN-UML ended after his meeting with UML President KP Sharma Oli on Wednesday. He said that the coalition with UML was almost over and that NC and the Maoist Center should move forward together.
Dahal has been saying that no dialogue with Oli in recent days has progressed in the right way. He told the meeting on Wednesday that Oli himself spoke for almost two hours during the two-hour meeting at the latter’s residence in Balkot on Thursday, and used language of threats rather than consensus and cooperation during that time.
“PM has been saying that he became more confident that he cannot move forward together with Oli after those meetings,” the Baluwatar source said.
Dahal told the NC leaders that the CPN (United Socialist) and the Janata Samajwadi Party (JSP) should also unite.
Dahal wants to form a socialist center including the United Socialist led by Madhav Nepal and the Janata Samajwadi Party (JSP) led by Upendra Yadav in the long term, according to another Maoist leader.
NC leaders told Dahal they were ready to unite Unified Socialist and JSP and noted how the two parties were fighting together after then-PM Oli dissolved the House.
The then ruling coalition also included Rastriya Janamorcha apart from the four parties, but JSP had left the coalition and decided to ally with UML just before submitting nominations following differences over seat allocation. The then ruling coalition had allied with the Loktantrik Samajwadi Party (LSP) on the plains.
The NC leaders had held a meeting with the unified socialist leaders at Deuba’s residence in Dhumbarahi before the Baluwatar meeting on Wednesday night. The chairman of the Nepal United Socialist Party told NC leaders that his party should get honorable status in the new coalition, adding that party leaders were urging him to become president.
The NC leaders told Nepal that it would be normal for the previous big party to keep the chairpersonship as the biggest party in the House and stated that they also agreed that Unified Socialist should have a respectable and sensible space in the new coalition. .
A unified socialist leader told Setopati that the episode of forging an alliance with UML was over and expressed confidence that the party would reach an agreement with NC and the Maoist Center. “We still want President Nepal to be the president. NC hinted at the meeting that we can move forward so that the Unified Socialist gets to lead the government for a short time. It would be finished on Thursday night”, added the leader.
NC and Maoist leaders also discussed how to take the United Socialist President of Nepal forward in power-sharing arrangements. Baluwatar’s source claimed that both NC and the Maoist Center agreed that Unified Socialist could lead the government for a short time at a certain time.
Deuba and Dahal would finalize their terms as Prime Minister (PM) after holding talks with Nepal. Deuba and Dahal held a separate one-on-one meeting even during Baluwatar’s meeting on Wednesday night to discuss the issue.
Dahal also informed the Baluwatar meeting that Oli warned him that NC would betray him in April and he would have to sit along with UML in opposition. Oli also told Dahal that he did not intend to make Nepal the next president.
Dahal resigned from the coalition with NC and Unified Socialist on December 25, 2022 and became Prime Minister (PM) with the support of CPN-UML, Rastriya Swatantra Party, RPP, Janata Samajwadi Party (JSP), Janamat Party and Nagarik Unmukti Party after the Nepal Congress. (NC) President Sher Bahadur Deuba refused to appoint him first prime minister.
Oli had assured NC that UML will not ally with the Maoist Center at all costs and would instead ally with NC to form the new government to encourage Deuba to break the deal to make Dahal PM first.
