By A Staff Reporter
Kathmandu, Nov. 28: With an attempt to elect office bearers and party leadership through consensus, the last meeting of the incumbent central committee of CPN-UML held at Sauraha on Friday night decided to increase the number of officer bearers and central committee members. The ongoing 10th National Congress will elect office bearers and leadership on Sunday.
UML central office secretary Sher Bahadur Tamang said the central committee meeting has decided to elect 19 officer bearers instead of 15 while the 225-member central committee will be enlarged to 301 members.

The meeting also decided to form a 99-member politburo, he added.
Tamang said the number of office bearers had been increased to elect new leadership unanimously.
Earlier, the UML Statute Convention held on October 1-3 at Godawari had decided to elect 15 office bearers and 225-member central committee.

However, the party central committee on Friday mid-night decided to make such amendments after the party chairman KP Sharma Oli faced a hard time managing a large number of aspirants for the positions of office bearers.
The amendment is expected to ensure consensus while electing leadership and to manage all the aspirant leaders.

Tamang said, “The party statute amendment proposal will be tabled at the closed session of the National Congress.”
Now there would be one chair, seven vice-chairs, including one senior vice-chair, one general secretary, there deputy-general secretaries and seven secretaries, he added.
The central committee decided to increase the posts of two vice-chairs and two deputy-general secretaries.
However, the 45-member standing committee will remain the same.

According to Tamang, there will be a 301-member advisory council, which will be formed by the central committee.
Likewise, there will be 22-member each central discipline commission, central accounts commission and central election commission.