KATHMANDU: CPN-UML Central Committee member Usha Kiran Timalsina on Friday warned that the party must not be steered toward destruction by the ambition of a single individual, addressing the 10th Central Committee meeting that has been underway in Lalitpur for three days.
Timalsina, speaking at the session, said the party with a “long and proud history” could not afford to become reactionary and called on the leadership to take responsible decisions for the sake of the nation and the party. “Comrades, there was a big nightmare on Bhadra 24. If we do not learn from it, history will condemn us,” she said, urging senior leaders to consider stepping aside if required. “One person’s ambition must not block the development and progress of the whole party.”
In a pointed intervention, Timalsina questioned claims that the leadership was successful in the face of widespread destruction and loss. She demanded accountability for the deaths of children, large-scale arson that damaged billions in public and private property, and questioned who would bear the moral responsibility, the commanding policemen who fired, those who made police accomplices, or the authority in charge at the time.
Timalsina also rejected conspiracy narratives, asking which foreign agencies were supposedly behind UML and whether such claims were credible. She reflected on the party’s trajectory under Chairperson KP Sharma Oli during his 11-year tenure, arguing that recent practices had sown public disappointment and fractured the party’s political standing.
She criticised the induction of figures she described as anarchic, naming Durga Prasai, into the party and demanded introspection over how such entrants were welcomed and whose political careers were effectively destroyed in the process.
Setting out her position in ten points, Timalsina pressed for the party’s reorganisation, saying the principal task for Nepali politics now was the restructuring of political parties and that UML must lead that process. She called on Oli to resign to break the political impasse and suggested that a graceful transfer of responsibility would send a positive signal nationwide. On the wider political question, she argued the country needed elections, not restoration of parliament, and urged UML to focus on contesting polls under fresh leadership.
Separately, former lawmaker and central member Thakur Gaire also urged a transfer of leadership, telling the Central Committee that the situation had grown complex and that stepping aside would be appropriate now. Gaire asked colleagues to make a concrete analysis of the circumstances before reaching a conclusion, adding that organisational transformation should not be misread as mere opposition to the leadership.
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