KATHMANDU, July 15: UCPN (Maoist) has formed a main organizing committee and eight subcommittees to convene the party´s seventh plenum starting Monday. The plenum will make clear various aspects of the party´s official position in the changed context.
The plenum will deliberate over and endorse the party chairman´s political paper, which has analyzed the present political scenario and proposed a future political course.
The plenum, which will be attended by around 5,000 party representatives from across the country, is being watched closely as it is taking place for the first time after the party saw a vertical split last month.
Party Standing Committee member Krishna Bahadur Mahara heads the main organizing committee while the eight subcommittees are led by other Politburo and Central Committee members.
Party leaders informed that the party is going to arrange for some 10 million rupees for the event.
Maoist leader making the announcement at Paris Danda. (Photo: Bhaswor Ojha)
"We estimate that six to 10 million rupees will be needed for holding the plenum," said Mahara at a press meet, adding that they would collect the money through voluntary donations. He clarified that they would not press anyone to make donations.
The party has given special responsibility to Standing Committee member Amik Sherchan and Finance Minister Barsha Man Pun to collect the money. The party has entrusted Nanda Kishor Pun, chief of the former People´s Liberation Army (PLA), and Ganesh Man Pun, chief of the YCL, the party´s Young Communist League, with responsibility for security arrangements during the plenum.
During the plenum, Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal will present his political proposal while Politburo member Ram Karki and Shashi Sherchan a.k.a. Sonam Sathi are planning to float separate proposals differing with some of the arguments in the chairman´s proposal.
The party, in its statement, said the plenum will review the issue of Constituent Assembly dissolution, the reasons behind the party split, the party´s weaknesses and its prospects.
The chairman´s political proposal has already been distributed among Politburo and Central Committee members. They were allowed to read the document at the party head office. But they were not allowed to take it outside, so as to prevent any leaks before deliberations take place at party meetings. The members have not aired their views on the document.
According to members who have studied the document, Dahal proposes to undo a previous decision to allow party members to run ´separate ideological groups´ within the party, saying such a practice has led to the vertical division in the party.
But the faction led by Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai, who is also party vice-chairman, is against the proposal. It argued that the leadership should end parallel factions within the party but not the separate ideological groups.
Earlier, the party had allowed the dissident faction led by Senior Vice-chairman Mohan Baidya to run its ´separate ideological group´ within the party. The faction eventually split from the UCPN (Maoist) to form a new party -- CPN-Maoist.
The UCPN (Maoist), which has not convened its general convention for the last 22 years, held its last plenum at Palungtar, Gorkha in 2010. The Palungtar plenum endorsed the party´s political line of revolt as proposed by the Baidya faction.
But later a Central Committee meeting reverted from this and passed a policy of ´peace and constitution´. While Bhattarai was against the plenum decision, the Baidya faction strongly opposed the CC move and distanced itself from the party chairman. The differences culminated in the party split.
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