After the Congress establishment took a stand not to hold a general convention before the House of Representatives elections, the signatory representatives have increased pressure to announce the date of the special general convention.

At a gathering held at the National Assembly in Kathmandu on Wednesday, supporters of the special general convention demanded an immediate date, saying that the election cannot be held without changing the party's policy and leadership. 54 percent of the delegates have signed and registered a petition demanding a special general convention at the central office on October 29.

The Congress Central Working Committee meeting has been indecisive for a month and a half due to the dispute over whether the general convention should be held before or after the election. Congress General Secretaries Gagan Thapa and Bishwaprakash Sharma have stood in favor of a special general convention after the establishment party was not ready to hold a regular general convention. However, they have not participated in the gathering and program organized by the special general convention signatories until a decision is made by the Central Working Committee.

Analyst Hari Sharma, who was the political advisor to the then Congress President and Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala, also arrived to address the gathering. Sharma said that the party, which has been practicing special general convention since 2014, is not allowed to go ahead with the issue demanded by the constitution. ‘It is time to hold the general convention. We should not sit around doing politics of prohibition. A new leadership must be elected. That is why the provision of a special convention has been made,’ he said.

The party with a history of 70 years has been unable to make a decision for months, has been trapped in indecision and has repeatedly called the Gen-G movement a victim of a conspiracy, so analyst Sharma told Kantipur that he reached the gathering as a citizen who loves the Congress. ‘We need a leadership that will understand the current complex situation and move forward,’ Sharma said at the gathering.

The meeting of the Congress Central Working Committee that began on 28 Asoj has not yet been able to resolve the dispute over the general convention. The meeting last Saturday decided to go for elections. In the first meeting of the working committee, President Sher Bahadur Deuba had given the responsibility of acting president to Vice President Purna Bahadur Khadka. This has earned sympathy, saying that Deuba has taken a step forward in the direction of leadership transfer. However, the dispute within the Congress has become more complicated after Deuba himself sent a sample signature to distribute tickets in the upcoming elections while registering the party with the Election Commission on Sunday.

It is time to hold the general convention, a new leadership must be selected, there is no room for going ahead by prohibiting the demand for a special general convention: Hari Sharma, analyst The Congress meeting was called on Thursday to take a decision on the general convention dispute, but it has been postponed to Friday as no agreement was reached. President Deuba, acting president Khadka, general secretaries Thapa and Sharma, and central member Ramesh Lekhak were in discussions since Wednesday morning to reach an understanding. The meeting was postponed after no agreement was reached in the efforts made throughout the day.

Even though it was agreed to bring the regular general convention schedule by mid-December before the election, President Deuba has put forward the 'condition' of withdrawing the signatures demanded for the special general convention. After the former office bearers of the establishment party insisted on this condition, no agreement has been reached. The general secretaries have said that due to the increasing pressure of time, a regular general convention will be possible only by shortening the process. They have put forward a proposal to hold a central convention directly after the ward and regional conventions. Regional representatives will be elected from the wards and those regional representatives will select the general convention representatives from the regional conventions, who will be the voters of the central general convention.

There is no consensus even within the establishment party on the issue of the general convention before the election. Mainly, the former office bearers are adamant that the general convention should not be held before the election. However, 28 central members of the establishment are lobbying the leadership to bring a schedule saying that the general convention should be held before the election.

Leaders of the establishment party also participated in the meeting held on Wednesday. Earlier, leaders in favor of the establishment party, including Om Gharti Magar, President of the Democratic Indigenous Peoples Federation, former President of the Nepal Teachers' Association, Keshav Niraula, Vice President of the Madhesh Province Working Committee Chandrashekhar Yadav, and Kaski Congress President Kishore Dutt Baral, were present at the meeting.

The meeting was chaired by Omkar Prasad Shrestha, a former Congress leader from Lalitpur. Shrestha is a witness to the special general convention in 2014. Shrestha, 88, who signed the special general convention, said that the special general convention was necessary in a situation where the leadership did not listen to the voices of the cadres below. BP Koirala became the party president in the special general convention called by party president Suvarna Shumsher in 2014. At the meeting, leader Gururaj Ghimire said that the party cannot go to the elections without wiping its face covered in the mud of power.