KATHMANDU: Acting President of Nepali Congress (NC), Purna Bahadur Khadka, has said that he will not convene the party’s Central Working Committee (CWC) meeting until a consensus is reached on the timing of the party’s 15th general convention.

Writing on his X page late Thursday, after the CWC meeting scheduled for Friday was postponed to Sunday, Khadka made it clear that the postponements will continue unless a consensus is reached on the general convention.

“I apologize to everyone for postponing the meeting. Please direct all criticism at me.
Until we reach a unanimous decision (on convention), I will keep postponing the meeting for as long as I remain the Acting President,” Khadka wrote in X.

The NC leadership is sharply divided over the timing of the general convention. Two general secretaries and leaders of the anti-establishment faction are insisting that the convention must be held before the election scheduled for March 5. They argue that going to the people with a renewed mandate and new leadership would energize the party’s campaign.

Leaders from the establishment faction, however, maintain that holding a convention ahead of the polls would deepen factional divisions and dampen electoral performance. They argue that the general convention should be held after the elections, preferably in April.

More than half of the NC’s Mahasamiti members have already filed an application at the party’s central office demanding that a special convention be convened. As per the party statute, a special convention must be convened within three months of receiving a valid demand with 40% of the signatures of the Mahasamiti members. The three-month period ends in mid-January.