The UCPN-M goes into its Central Committee meeting battered by outside pressure and internal fissures. There are three factions, three tendencies and three mindsets within the party, and these differences are now in the public domain.
Internal impunity is on the rise, and the party is in serious danger of unravelling. This is why the meeting must take some risky decisions. The party can either remain in its current comfort zone or take a gamble. But relations between the top leaders are strained, and they regard each other with suspicion. The party's slogans of the liberation of the oppressed and strengthening nationalism have turned into ultra-ethnicism and territorialism. Religious extremism is being stoked. The party's strength was its struggle on behalf of the oppressed, but this became counterproductive and today the slogans have been hijacked by revenge, ambition, and identity politics.
The rank and file is demoralised, and the leadership is torn by the clash of egos in the name of ideological differences. The party took an uncharted path by going along with the 12-point agreement. But when the party achieved unexpectedly good results in the CA elections, it was besieged from without. Within, the party became victim to ambition, NGO-ism, consumerism and nepotism. Criminals found shelter in the party's internal impunity.
The party has been forced to tolerate diplomatic pressure and interference. The southern and northern neighbours are worried about their own internal security. South Block has a colonial mindset. We need to analyse the geopolitical implications.
The problems have become complex. There are no ready-made solutions. But the party needs to look at a new effort, a new direction and a new policy to get out of the present crisis. Politics is about finding solutions and removing obstacles. The party should sometimes present itself as amenable to reform, but other times it will need to put its extremist left foot forward.
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