KATHMANDU: Chairman of the CPN Unified Socialist Madhav Kumar Nepal has expressed surprise that the second-generation leaders betrayed him. “They strongly urged me to move forward, but when I looked back after moving ahead, there was no one behind me,” he said.
Addressing a program in Kathmandu Saturday, Unified Socialist Chair Nepal said the change of stance of those who were eager to split the CPN-UML earlier surprised him. He added he had wanted to remain in the UML as a rebel. At that time, he recalled the second-rung leaders persistently pressuring him to split from the UML.
“KP Oli is a torchbearer of regression submerged in the rightist ideology. Oli faction sold themselves to foreigners. We ought to topple them at any cost,” Chair Nepal recalled the younger generation of leaders as saying. “They took initiatives to bring the Maoists, Upendra Yadav-led Janata Samajbadi Party, and a reluctant Sher Bahadur Deuba at a common platform.”
The ruling parties at present agreed to a struggle against Oli due to the second-rung leaders who were with me in the past, he added. “As the coalition started getting stronger, they told me to move ahead. They were ready to replace Oli with any Tom, Dick, and Harry. They were strongly inclined to replace Oli,” he said.
He said he convinced the younger generation at the time that they needed to be in the parliament to topple Oli as the parliament could only topple a government. “It was not possible to replace Oli from the streets,” Chair Nepal recalled telling them. “Accordingly, we boycotted the parliament when the then PM Oli took a vote of confidence on May 10”, said Unified Socialist Chairman Nepal.
He added when Oli became the prime minister again and tried to dissolve the parliament against the decision of the Supreme Court, the signatures of the majority of parliamentarians was required for the formation of the new government as per Article 76 (5) of the Constitution. “At that point in time, many started to backtrack. I dared to move forward.”
Referring to those second-generation leaders, who did not join his CPN Unified Socialists, he said, “They pushed me forward and when I looked back, no one was there with me.”
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