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No room for dissent within Nepal’s largest ‘democratic’ communist party

The ruling CPN-UML expelled a prominent male leader and suspended two women leaders for raising questions on the decisions of the party.

Kathmandu: Ruling CPN-UML, Nepal’s largest communist party which claims to adhere to democratic principles as much as any other democratic parties, on Wednesday took action against three prominent leaders for speaking against the decisions of the party and its chair KP Sharma Oli, who is the prime minister of Nepal at the moment.

The secretariat meeting of the party on  Wednesday took the decision to remove Bhim Rawal, who was deputy chair of the party at a time,  from general membership of the party. Likewise, Binda Pandey and Ushakiran Timsena, standing committee member and central committee member respectively, have been suspended from all roles within the party for the next six months.

“This is wrong. Binda Pandey is a pillar which helped build UML. Ushakiran has been a soldier of the party since childhood,” wrote Dr Bimala Rai Paudyal, a UML leader and former foreign minister of Nepal, expressing her dissent over the decision. “You should not  be subjected to action when you express what you think publicly.”

Pandey and Timsina were among the vocal critics of the decision of the party to accept the land donated to construct the party office by the owner of Bhatbhateni Supermarket chain, Min Bahadur Gurung. 

The Special Court in February had sentenced Gurung to two years in prison for his involvement in the Lalita Niwas land scam, apart from imposing eight million rupees in fine. 

Bhim Rawal, a fierce leader with nationalist image, has also been a vocal critic of the party’s decisions including chair Oli for the last many years.