After a poor showing in the Constituent Assembly elections, Nepal’s once powerful Maoist leader, Pushpa Kamal Dahal alias Prachanda, is under pressure to give up his leadership.
Holding him responsible for the results, several party leaders, including second-in-command and former prime minister Baburam Bhattarai, have sought his exit as chairman of the Unified Communist Party Nepal-Maoist.
He has been urged to hand over the baton to a new generation. The call for his resignation ignited a heated debate at the ongoing central committee meeting of the party, two months after the Constituent Assembly results relegated the Maoists to the third spot.
The two top slots were taken by the Nepali Congress and the CPN-UML.
Prachanda became an iconic figure after leading a Maoist insurgency from 1996 that claimed thousands of lives but toppled the monarchy in Nepal.
Later, the Maoists emerged as the largest party in the 2008 national election.
Prachanda has admitted that he made several mistakes in the past and could not deliver on the promises made to the people.
He has offered several apologies in the political document tabled at the party meet. But Bhattarai, who has been Prachanda’s deputy, criticized him for becoming a Stalin by centralizing all power and organizational resources in his hands.
In Communist parlance, Stalinism is identified with personality cult and autocratic functioning. Bhattarai said the leadership, mainly Dahal, should improve its working style so as to rebuild the Maoist party.