Why Deuba should stop the circus

His refusal to accept the party’s leadership transition risks weakening Nepal’s democratic opposition.

The spectacle unfolding around the Nepali Congress is, at best, a tragicomedy of elderly vanity, played out on the ruins of Nepal’s largest democratic force. As the Gagan Thapa-led party moves to gather around 7,000 delegates at Tundikhel for its 15th General Convention, ousted party chief Sher Bahadur Deuba remains dug in at his Chundevi base, staging a defiant parallel circus. Nepal’s grand old party, by operating as two bitter, parallel institutions—competing over ward conventions, squabbling over candidate fees, and hurling threats of expulsion—is committing public suicide. It is a spectacle as needless as it is disgraceful.