The establishment side's view that the schedule should be revised, and General Secretaries Thapa and Sharma's suggestion to hold only ward, region and center conventions
What you should know
The delay in distributing new active memberships in the Congress has raised concerns about the possibility of the schedule of the 15th Congress scheduled for 26-29 December being affected. Doubts have arisen that the general convention will be held on the scheduled date after a proposal to amend the agenda was raised at the meeting held at President Sher Bahadur Deuba's residence in Maharajgunj on Saturday, citing the distribution of memberships.
General Secretaries Gagan Thapa and Bishwaprakash Sharma also participated in the meeting convened by Acting President Purna Bahadur Khadka. The establishment side had raised the issue of revising the schedule citing the delay in active membership and preparations for the election. However, General Secretaries Thapa and Sharma have not backed down from their prior commitment to hold the general convention before the election. As an alternative, they have proposed that the general convention should be held through a short process. The General Secretaries have suggested to President Deuba and Acting President Khadka that the schedule can be revised to hold the central general convention directly after the ward and regional conventions. However, the establishment side is not in favor of accepting this and moving forward.
Active membership is the initial voter of the Congress. The ward convention is held initially from active membership. From that, additional regional representatives of the ward working committee are selected. Regional representatives elected from the ward are voters of the municipality, province, House of Representatives and district conventions. General Secretaries Thapa and Sharma say that the schedule can be amended to hold a regional convention of the House of Representatives and a central general convention at the same time from the same voters. The general convention representatives elected from the regional convention of the House of Representatives are the voter representatives of the central general convention.
The meeting of the Central Working Committee of the Congress on 15th Mangsir has brought a schedule of conventions at seven levels: ward, municipality, provincial regional, federal regional, district, province and center. According to the schedule, the convention will start from village and city wards on 16th Pus. Then, there will be a village, municipality on 17th Pus, a provincial assembly regional on 19th Pus, a regional convention on 21st Pus and a district convention with a single House of Representatives constituency, a district convention with two or more constituencies on 21st Pus, a provincial convention on 23rd and 24th Pus, and then a central general convention on 26th-29th Pus.
With only 10 days left for the ward convention, the distribution and renewal of active membership of the Congress has not yet been finalized. After the establishment party and leader Shekhar Koirala became suspicious that about four lakh membership forms were distributed without serial numbers, the same number of active membership forms with serial numbers have been printed and sent to each district since Thursday.
The Congress has about 9 lakh active memberships. It is estimated that only about 70 percent of them can renew. New memberships have been opened from this time. Since there is a lot of variation in the distribution of active memberships at the center, it becomes the main reason for disputes among the central level leaders. Disputes are started from the ward itself to create memberships that suit each party. It has been a tradition that it took 6 to 8 months to resolve such disputes in the past.
This time too, a membership investigation committee has been formed under the leadership of Joint General Secretary Mahendra Yadav. But the committee has not been able to work because the data on active membership has not reached the center. According to Yadav, the investigation committee has met once. He said that the process of receiving some complaints of disputes has begun. He said that the distribution of forms without serial numbers is causing a delay in completing the membership work.
‘New distribution has been made since Thursday, replacing 400,000 memberships without serial numbers. For this reason, the schedule will naturally be affected,’ he said, ‘In how many places, renewals have not been made. In some districts, there is no record due to burning. Active membership should come to the center only after the ward, municipality, province, House of Representatives constituency and district sign.’ He said that it will be very difficult to hold the convention on the scheduled date as it took seven/eight months to investigate the dispute in the past.
It does not seem possible to hold the general convention as per the predetermined schedule as we still have to wait a long time to complete the distribution and renewal of active membership: Prakash Sharan Mahat, Spokesperson, Congress Congress spokesperson Prakash Sharan Mahat says that it is not possible to hold the general convention as per the predetermined schedule as we still have to wait a long time to complete the distribution and renewal of active membership. ‘If the election is not held on 21 Falgun, the party’s general convention can be held in the same month. If the election is held, it will have to be held in Baisakh,’ he said, ‘The renewal record has not yet reached the center. The form for distributing new membership has just been sent. When will the membership dispute be investigated and when will the center convention be held after the following conventions? It does not seem possible to do all these things as per the schedule. The previous schedule is likely to be affected.’
Since then, the special convention petition has been pending, but the supporters of the special convention have said that they will take a decision after a week’s time. On 29 Asoj, 54 percent of the general convention delegates signed and demanded a special convention. According to the statute, the deadline for calling a special convention is 28 Pus.
The renewal and distribution of active membership could not be done at the pace it should have been, and if it is not done regularly, a special general convention would have to be called: Gururaj Ghimire, leader, Congress Leader Gururaj Ghimire, who has been leading the special general convention, said that doubts had arisen from the beginning because an impractical schedule was brought in that it would not even hold the general convention. 'We have taken it positively and said that we will do as much work as we can by at least moving this schedule forward together to resume the process of the general convention.' However, the renewal and distribution of active membership could not be done at the pace it should have been,' Ghimire said, 'Controversies regarding membership are traditionally rife. Considering the difficult situation of the Gen-G movement, there was no situation to work.' Therefore, we, who are in favor of the special general convention, will reach a decision after looking at the situation for a few days. If it is not regular, a special general convention will have to be called.' He said that the Congress will have to bear a huge loss if it goes to the election without holding the general convention in advance.
According to the Congress's work schedule, the deadline for resolving all disputes regarding renewal and new membership and handing over the membership details to the central president and acting president is December 14. Since the membership work cannot be completed within the specified time, acting president Khadka will take a proposal to amend the work schedule in the meeting of the central work committee to be held now, a leader close to president Deuba said. The date of the meeting has not been fixed.
Meanwhile, the meeting of the membership management committee, coordinated by General Secretary Thapa, held on Sunday, has started efforts to complete the membership work through 'fast track' so that the general convention is held before the election on February 21. ‘Our entire focus is on finalizing the membership so that the general convention can be held before the House of Representatives elections,’ said committee member Prakash Snehi, ‘There are only five/seven districts left for the renewal record to come. We will also complete the work of new membership within a week.’ He said that the dispute over memberships without serial numbers is unnatural as active memberships cannot be entered into the computer without a decision at four levels.
Ajay Babu Shiwakoti, a member of the active membership investigation committee, said that the problem arose due to lack of trust in the party’s lower committee members and technology in the distribution of active memberships. ‘The final decision will be made only after the ward, municipality, province, House of Representatives constituency and district decide on active membership.’ After that, the serial number is auto-generated when entered into the computer. "The delay was caused by raising the dispute without understanding it," he said. "The problem arose when senior party leaders distrusted their own party members and technology."
He said that the dispute investigation committee would start working only after the active membership management committee sent the data. "Since membership has been opened this time, there is a possibility that disputes will be much less." Work can still be done without affecting the work schedule decided by the central working committee, but everyone needs honesty," he added. "Except for some districts where there were disputes over active membership, there is a tradition of holding conventions in the past. The same can be done now."
