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Congress lands in internal wrangling over candidate nomination

A section of Congress leaders have criticised the leadership for failing to exercise transparent and reliable criteria in the selection of party candidates for the forthcoming Constituent Assembly (CA) election.

A meeting of the dissatisfied leaders held at the residence of central working committee member Govinda Raj Joshi, on Saturday, concluded that acting president Sushil Koirala, vice president Ram Chandra Poudel and senior leader Sher Bahadur Deuba have hand-picked their coterie members when finalising candidate list.

At the meeting, participated by Joshi, Chiranjibi Wagle, Bal Bahadur KC, Amar Raj Kaini, Laxman Ghimire, Ram Janam Chaudhary, Sharat Singh Bhandari, Managal Prasad Tharu, Shyam Lal Shrestha and Bijaya Gachhadar, the leaders decided to form a three-member team including Joshi, Wagle and KC to brief the prime minister and party president Girija Prasad Koirala about their grievances.

“Sher Bahadur, Sushil and Ram Chandra have committed gross injustice when finalising candidates but even party president could do nothing. Right now there is a movement going on in Terai, but they only added fuel to the fire by not nominating even the sitting MPs from the region,” said Joshi. He also complained about lack of young candidates in the election.

On the other hand, a separate group of dissatisfied leaders also met at residence of Narahari Acharya, on Saturday, to complain about the lack of ‘internal democracy.’ Even party spokesperson Arjun Narsingh KC voiced protests at the selection of candidates in opaque manner.

Meanwhile, the NC has finalised its list of candidates from 68 out of 75 districts - who will contest direct election for the CA. Due to internal disputes, candidates could not be finalised for Ilam, Dhanusha, Mahottari, Bara, Kaski, Chitawan and Nuwakot districts.

PM Koirala will not contest direct election this time. Acting president Sushil Koirala will contest Banke-3 constituency. Vice president Ram Chandra Poudel will contest Tanahu-2 while Sher Bahadur Deuba will contest Dadelshura and Kanchanpur-4 constituencies. Likewise, Ram Baran Yadav will contest Dhanusha-5 and Bimalendra Nidhi will contest Dhanusha-2 constituencies.

The political parties will have to file the list of their candidates for direct elections at the Election Commission (EC) on Monday. nepalnews.com sd Feb 24 08