Article 16 (h) and (i) of the statute of the Nepali Congress (NC) have empowered the party's supreme body -- General Convention -- to make decisions on formulating party's core policy.
But, the 14th General Convention of the NC held in Kathmandu on December 22–23, 2021, skipped endorsing policy and programs and concluded by electing a Central Working Committee (CWC) under party President Sher Bahadur Deuba.
The general convention had mandated the CWC to hold a policy convention in near future. But, the NC has yet to hold its policy convention that decides on the principles, ideals, values, policies and strategy of the party until the next convention.
A year has passed since the 14th general convention and the party is forced to remain in the opposition despite emerging as the largest party in the House of Representatives (HoR) from the recently held November 20 elections.
More recently on National Reconciliation Day, NC general secretaries, through a joint statement, suggested on holding policy convention for strengthening and taking the party forward.
Subsequently, the next day, the NC's non-establishment faction held a meeting and stressed initiating the process of holding the policy convention rather than voicing calls for the same.
Meanwhile, the NC has called its CWC meeting on January 6.
It is interesting to watch whether the party would take up and discuss policy convention in the meeting, though January 6 CWC meeting schedule clearly doesn't include policy convention as agenda.
NC Vice President Purna Bahadur Khadka, on the contrary, said January 6's CWC meet would fix a date for policy convention, and preparations for the same would begin. He added though CWC meet held earlier discussed policy convention, time could not be given for preparation in the face of elections.
"The CWC has already decided to hold the party's policy convention and entrusted the necessary preparations to the Central Office. Since the entire party had to focus on the election, it was not possible give time for its preparation,'' said Khadka.
"The CWC set to kick off from January 6 will set the date of policy convention and we will start preparing for it."
However, some NC leaders view policy convention as irrelevant. They reasoned it was time to hold the Mahasamiti meeting in line with the NC statute instead of policy convention which is not clearly mentioned in the statute.
Stating that policy convention was not recognized by the NC statute, leader Pradeep Poudel favored calling the Mahasamiti meeting, which could decide on policy, legislation and organization instead of a policy convention.
"I don't think the policy convention is relevant. There is no issue with creating a forum for discussion. But, if we are to abide by the statute then, we should call the Mahasamiti meeting," said leader Poudel.
"The Mahasamiti meeting can do what policy convention is meant to do. It is not appropriate to do things not mentioned in the party statute," he added. He further said it was not so democratic to discuss policies after electing the leadership.
"Policy and leadership can't be viewed differently. Is there leadership without policy? When we choose the leadership from the general convention, we do not choose a person but the policies s/he floats," said Poudel.
"Therefore, it is impossible to elect leadership without policy. How can it -- choosing the leadership first and figuring out policy later -- be democratic?"
After the NC is limited to the opposition despite being the largest party in parliament, party President Deuba has moved out of Prime Minister's official residence in Baluwatar and moved into a rented house in Dhumbarai.
He has been holding talks with leaders close to him since CPN (Maoist Center) Chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal 'Prachanda' became prime minister on December 25.
Leaders calling on him tell that the NC president is not keenly interested on a policy convention.
A central member close to the establishment side said that he did not see a situation where the policy convention would be held immediately.
"We went to meet the NC president last time. When I inquired about policy convention with him in course of the conversation, he asked to talk about it in the next meeting and not January 6 meet," said the central member.
The leader quoted Deuba as saying, "Not now (in January 6 meeting), let's talk about it in the next meeting."
The 14th NC general convention held on December 22–23, 2021, elected only the CWC by keeping policy aside.
Before that, the CWC meet held on November 15, 2021, had decided to focus only on the leadership selection from the 14th general convention. Though the meeting decided to hold a policy convention within 6 months of the conclusion of the 14th general convention, the agenda of the policy convention has not been formally introduced in any organs of the party.
After the convention, the NC did not have time to discuss the policy convention in the first six months due to the National Assembly elections, dispute-disrupted party's district and regional conventions and the local level elections.
After the local level elections were held on May 13, 2022, NC policy convention has been overshadowed by the House of Representatives and Province Assembly elections.
