KATHMANDU: The Poudel faction of the ruling Nepali Congress (NC) has stressed that the 14th General Convention should be held on September 1-4 to preserve the legitimacy of the party.

A meeting of the Poudel faction held at the residence of General Secretary Shashank Koirala in Maharajgunj on Monday concluded that the general convention should be held on the scheduled date as there is no legal way to postpone the schedule, said Central Member Gururaj Ghimire.

Meanwhile, the establishment leaders have described the Poudel faction’s stance as nothing but a strategic plan to only embarrass the leadership.

While Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, who is also the President of the NC, is looking for an alternative way to postpone the general convention, Poudel faction has made a strategy to pressurize the leadership to hold the convention on the stipulated date, arguing that the party’s legitimacy is at stake.

Stating that the legitimacy of the party cannot be maintained only with the approval of the Election Commission (EC), the Poudel group has stated that the next possible option could be a special general convention.

According to leader Ghimire, most of the leaders present in Monday’s meeting emphasized on the regular general convention rather than the special general convention.

The Poudel faction has said that the time could be extended until September 19 arguing that even though the 13th General Convention was held on March 6, 2016, the certificate was distributed only on March 16, 2016.

Poudel group has asserted that the Supreme Court’s order to consider the time of ‘lockdown’ as zero time would not be acceptable to it.