Dissent in UML

KP Oli as the party’s custodian should be promoting healthy debates and discussions.

CPN-UML Chair and current Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli is instinctively combative against anyone he sees as even remotely challenging his authority. Using his unmatched flair for Nepali idioms, he is a past master at verbally taking down the credibility of his political opponents. The good news for him is that after the exit from the UML of senior leaders like Madhav Kumar Nepal and Jhalanath Khanal in early 2021, Oli has near complete control over the party machinery. Yet the insecurity over the possible emergence of rival leaders apparently continues to gnaw at the septuagenarian leader. The much-discussed reentry of ex-Nepali President Bidya Devi Bhandari into the UML fold may have given Oli many sleepless nights. Bhandari is not his only headache. Speaking at a party meeting on Sunday, Oli warned the UML rank and file that no kind of factionalism would be tolerated in the party. He added, for good measure, that even though such diktats had been issued in the past, this time he was dead serious. But then the chairperson is himself being accused of promoting factionalism.