KATHMANDU: The organizational activities of the Nepali Congress (NC), the largest party in the House of Representatives, appear to be paralyzed as the party remains entangled in power politics.
With key internal work stalled, Nepali Congress leaders—from the central level down to the grassroots—have been left with little to do.
Since joining the government under the leadership of the second-largest party, the CPN-UML, the Nepali Congress has failed to hold regular meetings of its Central Working Committee (CWC).
The party has not convened a single CWC meeting dedicated to organizational planning since August last year. In fact, over the past year, the CWC has met only once.
In the absence of regular central meetings, the party has been making important decisions through meetings of its office bearers and a select group from the central leadership.
However, such meetings are not officially recognized by the party’s statute, which grants legal standing only to decisions made by the full Central Working Committee.
The Nepali Congress joined the government led by UML Chair KP Sharma Oli in July last year. Following that, it held a CWC meeting in the first week of August last year, which continued until September 1, 2024.
That meeting endorsed, with amendments, the reports submitted to the Mahasamiti meeting held in Godavari, Lalitpur last year.
The same meeting also expressed commitment to implementing the seven-point agreement reached with the UML.
Based on this decision, the party launched a 100-day special organizational campaign from September 17 to December 25. The campaign aimed to strengthen internal coordination and improve relations between the party and its elected representatives.
Despite that initiative, the Nepali Congress has not called another CWC meeting through a broad internal process to decide future programs.
On April 15, the party issued a notice announcing that a CWC meeting would be held on April 30. But another notice issued on April 10 indefinitely postponed that meeting.
The statement read: “The meeting of the Nepali Congress Central Working Committee scheduled for April 30, 2025 has been postponed until further notice.”
Min Bahadur Bishwakarma, head of the party’s Central Information, Communication, and Publicity Department, stated that the meeting was postponed because the government called a budget session of Parliament for the following day.
“We had scheduled the party’s Central Working Committee meeting for April 30,” he told Khabarhub. “However, the Cabinet decided to summon a parliamentary session the next day. We didn’t want the party meeting to clash with Parliament. Since this was the first meeting in a long time, we wanted everyone to have time to speak, so we postponed it.”
Bishwakarma said there is now a possibility that the CWC meeting will take place within the second week of May. “We’re currently in discussions with the Speaker. We cannot leave Parliament inactive for a full week. However, if there is a 4–5 day gap, we will hold the party meeting during that time,” he said.
“The Chief Whip, Shyam Ghimire, is in talks with the Speaker. If the opportunity arises, we plan to hold the meeting in the second week of May.”
Meanwhile, Khabarhub posed three questions to Bishwakarma, the head of the Nepali Congress’s publicity department:
Where has the active membership renewal campaign reached?
We have issued three consecutive reminders for membership renewal. However, the delay originated from the local level itself, where the active membership renewal process did not move forward as expected.
Currently, after several reminders, the initial phase of membership renewal has been completed in most districts. Local units are now entering the data and submitting it to the central office.
Based on current submissions to the central office, only around 10 percent of the total has been received so far. Still, we are confident that all renewals will reach the center by the end of this month.
What is the Nepali Congress doing at the moment?
The Central Working Committee meeting has not been held for almost 10 months. In the meantime, we launched an internal special campaign. Following that, we also conducted a 100-day organizational drive.
At present, various departments within the party are actively running programs. Some are conducting activities at the central level, while others are working at the provincial and district levels. The local units are primarily focused on renewing active memberships.
The departments have been organizing subject-specific programs. Because of this ongoing work, no special central-level program has been scheduled recently.
The next step now is to convene a Central Working Committee meeting. We had initially scheduled this meeting. However, the Council of Ministers decided to summon a session of Parliament the very next day.
We did not want to schedule the party meeting alongside the Parliament session. Since this would be the first party meeting in a long time, it’s important that everyone gets a chance to speak. For that reason, we decided to postpone it. We are currently in consultation with the Speaker of the House.
It is not feasible to leave Parliament without session for a whole week. But if a 4–5-day window opens up in between, we plan to hold the party meeting during that gap.
Our Chief Whip, Shyam Ghimire, is already in discussions with the Speaker. If conditions allow, there is a strong possibility that the meeting will take place in the first week of Jestha.
The government is currently busy preparing the budget. What role is the Congress, as a ruling coalition partner, playing in this process?
This time, the policy and program were prepared after consultations between both coalition parties—at the top leadership level, at the government task force level, and in parliamentary committees.
The budget is being discussed on the same foundation. These discussions are ongoing not only within the ruling alliance but also with parties outside the coalition.
Given this process, there’s little chance that the Congress will need to express disagreement over the budget. Just as we supported the policy and program because they were finalized through consensus, the same will apply to the budget.
We are hopeful that a conducive environment will be created for the Nepali Congress to extend its full support to the upcoming budget.
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