”We sometimes joined forces with the UML and sometimes with the Maoists for power, which was wrong. It was my mistake to sit back and do nothing even when the chairman decided against his own theoretical beliefs that an alliance should not be formed.”
What you should know
Nepali Congress General Secretary Gagan Thapa has said that if there is willpower, the party's general convention can be held before the elections.
At the Central Working Committee meeting on Thursday, he expressed the view that since no one was ready for the regular general convention, the party should now proceed with a special general convention.
He said that citizens would not trust the party if it went to the elections without general reforms, and that the party should only go ahead by making the general convention mandatory. Speaking at the Central Working Committee meeting on Thursday, Thapa had expressed the view that the party had recently prioritized power over principles, which had led to deviations and anger among the youth.
Countering the establishment party's stance that it should not enter into internal issues within the party before the elections, Thapa said, 'The general convention is not always an internal issue of the party. This is a national issue. The general convention holds extensive discussions. Now it can be said that it is not the old Congress, but a reformed Congress. Only when it is reformed can the common citizen trust it.'
Thapa said that the first thing the Congress will do at the general convention is to atone for the mistakes it has made in the past. ‘We say we made mistakes, we accept them,’ he said, ‘It is a matter of what position the Congress will take. The Congress takes pride in history. He said that the convention will improve the party’s structure and the entry of new youth. ‘From the place where power is the greatest, we will establish that principle is the greatest thing,’ he said.
If there is no comprehensive reform in the party and the leaders are not corrected, General Secretary Thapa said that a movement like the one on Bhadra 23 could happen again. ‘Sometimes we joined with the UML and sometimes with the Maoists for power.’ This was wrong, he said, ‘Now we have to prove that principle, not power, is paramount in the party.’
Thapa said that he had made a dozen mistakes in the past and would learn from that incident and move forward. ‘We expected the incident of Bhada 23 to happen at any time. We warned in Parliament. If not in Bhada, it would have happened in Mangsir, if not in Mangsir, it would have happened in Magh,’ Thapa said, ‘But I made a mistake while accepting the decision of the majority. I should have fought. I should not have let the decision be made. I should have put all my strength into it. There was a mistake in that. I accept it.’
He also recalled that he had expressed his disagreement with forming an alliance with the Maoists before the 2079 elections. ‘They said that leaning towards the Maoists would affect the voters below. They said that an alliance should not be formed. But, I made a mistake by joining the same alliance and contesting the election,’ Thapa said, ‘After being told that an alliance should not be formed, I should not have contested the election.’
Thapa said that it was his mistake to sit back and do nothing even when the president decided against forming an alliance between the Congress and the UML, contrary to his own theoretical beliefs. ‘I came to know about the alliance between the two parties through the media after eating curd.’ Then the president was told that this party was your private company. Later, it was accepted that the decision had been made. But, looking back now, he should have refused and said that he would change the leader,’ he said.
He said that even after the government was formed, he left the mechanism due to the government’s wrong decisions and inconsistencies. Thapa clarified that he stopped going to the high-level political mechanism after the decision to remove Kulman Ghising from the Electricity Authority. ‘This was not a matter of one person, it was a matter of the state system,’ he said.
