KATHMANDU — The Nepali Congress is now running two parallel command structures, and the clock is ticking toward a July 4 deadline that could make the rift permanent. Dr. Minendra Rijal, a senior party leader and former minister, has publicly urged the party to pursue genuine unity rather than trying to paper over the split with a formal merger of its warring factions.
Rijal’s argument, delivered in an interview with Khabarhub, cuts to the heart of a crisis that has festered for nearly a month since the party’s special general convention. He described the current situation as two software teams both claiming to run the same application.
The result is conflicting updates. Nobody knows which version to trust. In plain terms, the party has two sets of leaders issuing orders.
That is no way to prepare for an election. The dissident faction has already opened an office in Chundevi, Maharajgunj, Kathmandu.
They are expanding organizational activities for the party’s 15th General Convention. That office is a concrete signal that the split is hardening, not softening. While the party leadership sends out deadline notices for digital active membership renewal, the other side is building infrastructure.
Party president Gagan Kumar Thapa, who assumed office through the special general convention, has warned that members who fail to renew their digital active membership by July 4 will no longer be recognized by the party. That warning has drawn sharp criticism from within the party. Many leaders argue the leadership has focused more on administrative measures than on bridging the internal divide.
Instead of healing wounds, the party is issuing ultimatums. Rijal’s comments suggest this approach misses the bigger problem.
A merger of factions, he implied, is not the same as unity. You cannot simply declare two warring camps one organization and expect the fighting to stop. The parallel structures already exist.
Orders are already being given from two centers. A formal merger would only legitimize a situation that is already dysfunctional.
The practical upshot is grim for the party’s electoral prospects. Elections demand discipline. They demand a single chain of command.
The Nepali Congress currently has none. It has two chains, each claiming supremacy. Rijal’s call for unity rather than merger is a recognition that the party’s wounds are deeper than organizational charts can fix.
The dissident faction’s move to establish its own office in Chundevi is the kind of concrete action that speaks louder than any press release. It means they are preparing for a long fight.
They are not waiting for the leadership to come around. They are building their own machine. Meanwhile, the July 4 deadline looms.
It is an administrative deadline, not a political one. But it could become political very quickly.
If the dissident faction’s members fail to renew, they lose official recognition. That would force a choice: accept expulsion or escalate the conflict. Neither option leads to unity.
Rijal’s interview was a warning. The party must find a way to unite that goes beyond paperwork. It must address the underlying forces that drove the split in the first place.
A formal merger of rival factions would only create a bigger, more unwieldy version of the same problem. Two software teams running the same app is bad enough.
Merging them into one team that still can’t agree on which version to run is no improvement at all.
