Madhav Kumar Nepal | A political game of chicken

The seasoned leader is looking for ways to stay relevant in Nepal’s fractious polity

If Madhav Kumar Nepal goes on to lead a new political outfit, formed after a vertical split of the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist-Leninist (UML), as reported in The Hindu on March 31, it would mark the end of a long journey with the party that he was associated as a general secretary for a decade and a half and as a single-term Prime Minister of Nepal. The circumstances leading to this decision were not atypical of Nepal’s polity or the vicissitudes of communist party politics, but Mr. Nepal would certainly be leaving the UML with his rival and current Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli in a much stronger position than he had expected after the Supreme Court on February 23 had overturned Mr. Oli’s decision to dissolve Parliament in December 2020. In a quirk of fate, the Supreme Court followed that decision with another one on March 7 that de-recognised the unified Nepal Communist Party (NCP) and reverted it to its two composite units before merger — the Oli-led UML and the Communist Party-Maoist Centre (led by Pushpa Kumar Dahal). This set the cat among pigeons once again. In the unified NCP, the factions that were pitted against each other transcended the UML-Maoist divide. Mr. Oli’s supporters included former Maoist leaders such as Ram Bahadur Thapa and a clutch of other former UML leaders, while the dissident wing included Mr. Dahal, along with Mr. Nepal and former UML general secretary and ex-Prime Minister Jhalanath Khanal.