KATHMANDU: The row in the ruling Nepal Communist Party (NCP) has once again touched a new height after Prime Minister KP Oli turned down NCP Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal’s ‘Prachanda’ urge to attend the Standing Committee meeting on Tuesday.

Dahal, along with party senior leader Jhalanath Khanal, had gone to meet PM Oli at his residence in Baluwatar by stalling the SC meeting to ask him to join the meeting.

Apprising the SC members about the meeting with PM Oli, Dahal urged them to refrain from making unnecessary and provocative remarks “or else the party would split.”

As many as 27 SC members, including party Chairman Dahal, senior leaders Madhav Kumar Nepal, Jhalanath Khanal, General Secretary Bishnu Poudel, and NCP Vice President Bam Dev Gautam are attending the meeting at Prime Minister’s official residence in Baluwatar.

Home Minister Ram Bahadur Thapa is, however, not in the meeting despite being asked to attend.

Prachanda also urged SC members not to term it a SC meeting. Prime Minister Oli is learned to have told Dahal to continue with the meeting but not as a Standing Committee one.

Meanwhile, SC member and Minister of Tourism Yogesh Bhattarai has warned that the party was headed towards grave crisis urging one and all to have patience.

The party was earlier caught in a quagmire whether or not to go ahead with today’s scheduled SC meeting owing to the respective stance of Prime Minister Oli and Chairman Dahal.

Earlier, reports were that the SC meeting was postponed indefinitely after PM Oli did not budge an inch from his stance of not holding the scheduled meeting.

The SC has been deadlocked for a long time after PM Oli and Dahal could not resolve their differences on some thorny issues in the party.

The intra-party feud has deepened further after Dahal-Nepal camp started demanding Oli’s resignation.

On the other hand, Oli is adamant to not resign from both of his posts.

He seems to have a graceful exit by handing over the post through the upcoming general convention of the party.

With both the leaders remaining adamant not to budge an inch from their respective stances, several one-on-one meetings between the two heavyweights in the past ended inconclusively.

The SC meeting which started since June 24 has been postponed time and again after Oli’s resignation entered as an agenda in the meeting.

The dispute is primarily centered on whether Oli should resign from the post of chairman immediately or through the upcoming general convention in line with the statute of the party.

Senior leaders Khanal, Nepal, and Spokesperson Shrestha had urged Chairman Dahal not to postpone today’s meeting, suggesting the latter to sort out the issue through the meeting itself.