By A Staff Reporter
Kathmandu, Dec. 27: Vice-chairman of the ruling Nepal Communist Party (NCP) Bam Dev Gautam held a meeting with the leaders of the Prachanda-Nepal faction of NCP to discuss the party’s current political crisis.
Gautam visited Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ on Saturday morning.
Gautam’s press advisor Biswamani Subedi said the vice-chairman met Dahal at his residence in Khumaltar, Lalitpur.
Subedi said the two leaders discussed the issues of dissolution of the House of Representatives and on-going crisis within the party. During the meeting, Prachanda asked Gautam to join his faction. Gautam, however, told Dahal that he was still in favour of party unity.
He also clarified that though he was against the move to dissolve the parliament, he would not join any faction.
Gautam said he would always stand in favour of the party unity and would make all possible efforts towards safeguarding the party unity till the end.
Asking Prachanda to be mindful while taking any further steps, he added that the pathway to consensus would always remain open. The meeting was later joined by co-chairman of the faction Madhav Kumar Nepal, senior leader Jhalnath Khanal and party spokesperson Narayan Kaji Shrestha, Gautam’s secretariat informed.
Earlier, Secretariat member of the ruling Nepal Communist Party (NCP) and Home Minister Ram Bahadur Thapa ‘Badal’ had also claimed that he would stay neutral and would not join any camp.
However, Thapa, who belonged to the erstwhile CPN Maoist prior to the merger of the then CPN-UML and CPN (Maoist Centre), joined chairman Oli’s camp on Thursday.