Secretariat meeting of the ruling CPN has again been postponed after continuous consultation between chairman duo KP Sharma Oli and Pushpa Kamal Dahal failed to yield result.
The meeting called for three Wednesday afternoon has been postponed for Thursday citing lack of preparations. It was also postponed on Tuesday.
The two chairmen started consultation after Prime Minister (PM) Oli returned on Monday completing a week-long Singapore visit. They again talked for a while Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning.
The secretariat meeting has been postponed to Thursday as they failed to reach agreement in three rounds of consultations. "The two chairmen will again meet at three Wednesday afternoon," a Baluwatar source said.
Senior CPN leader Madhav Kumar Nepal confirmed that the secretariat meeting has been postponed but expressed ignorance about the reason for postponement. He revealed that the party has not been able to decide about departments, sister organizations and different commissions despite multiple rounds of meetings.
"It is becoming difficult to reach consensus as comrades are not talking in accordance to the procedures," Nepal told Setopati.
The last secretariat meeting on July 29 had asked General Secretary Bishnu Paudel to talk with central leaders about their wish and prepare a report after the meeting failed to decide about leadership of the party's departments including the school department.
Dahal and Paudel have separately talked with leaders about their wish, and the latter has already prepared the report that was scheduled to be presented to Tuesday's secretariat meeting.
The majority of CPN standing committee members during their interaction with Paudel have claimed for leadership of the party departments and opined that secretariat members should not be overburdened with responsibility of leading the departments.
Leaders have already agreed to hand over leadership of 18 departments to former UML leaders and 14 to Maoist leaders but they have yet to agree about leadership of the 33
rd department.
Oli is adamant that secretariat member Ishwore Pokharel should lead the school department while Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal insists that another secretariat member Narayan Kaji Shrestha should get the department.
Former Maoist leaders vehemently oppose appointment of Pokharel saying a person who has been lobbying to make people's multiparty democracy the united party's guiding principle should not be made chief of the school department but former UML leaders are not unanimous on Pokharel.
Senior leader Jhala Nath Khanal, who is also a member of the nine-strong secretariat, has already stated that he will accept the responsibility if the party decides to hand over the department to him despite already agreeing to head the policy and academy department.
