21 Chait, Kathmandu. The leaders of the CPN-UML, which suffered a historic defeat in the House of Representatives elections, have increased the pressure to change the leadership. While they are expressing about party reorganization through social media and public forums, a campaign to demand a special convention has also been opened.

According to sources, a signature campaign of representatives to demand a special convention has been started since the formal review has not started within the party even a month after the election.

“Despite some of the decisions of the party after the election and the stubbornness of the leaders, the only option to save the party is a special convention,” said a leader involved in the signature campaign with Online News.

In Article 73 of UML’s Party Constitution-2049, there is a provision that a special convention must be organized within 6 months if two-thirds of the district committee or the majority of the national convention representatives request it in writing. The leader says that a signature campaign has been started to demand a special convention in accordance with the same arrangement.

In the petition prepared to demand a special convention, the defeat of the election has been shown as the reason. “In parliamentary politics from 2048 to 2082, the weakest election result was 9 seats out of 165 seats (5.45 percent) directly and only 13.43 percent of votes in proportional. It is a situation where the people distrust the current overall committee system and leadership of CPN-UML,” the petition said, “The confiscation of bail of CPN-UML candidates in 11 out of 15 constituencies in Kathmandu Valley, where the capital is located, reveals a serious situation.”

The petition mentions the reason why a special convention should be called as the present Central Secretariat and the Central Committee alone cannot review the crisis of this level. ‘It seems that neither the Central Secretariat nor the Central Committee alone can come up with a solution after reviewing this situation, standing at a critical moment in history,’ the petition said.

The constitution of UML states that if the majority of the representatives or two-thirds of the district committee demand, the central committee should call a special convention and if it is not called, the decision made by such a special convention will be official.

“The special convention/convention shall be able to fulfill all the rights and duties specified in the various articles of this election for the convention/convention,” is written in Article 73 (d) of the statute.

According to high sources, preparations are being made to run a signature campaign on the demand of a special convention by junior level leaders. “It is not expected that the leaders of the official level will join this openly, it may have happened from the cadre level,” said an official, “but we do not want a situation to be created where we have to demand a special convention.”

The party president KP Sharma Oli is in police custody and it is not appropriate to go to the special convention course, the leader argues.

‘It seems that there is a large public opinion that there should be a change in leadership, but it should be done through an appropriate method. A comprehensive discussion is necessary for that,’ says the official.

He says that the crisis of the party and contemporary politics were openly discussed in the secretariat meeting held on Friday. Yesterday, Friday, one month after the completion of the elections, the secretariat meeting was held for 6 hours at the central headquarters Chasal.

The leaders said that the review of the results of the election has started at the meeting. ‘…the meeting has briefly reviewed the House of Representatives elections held on 21st February 2082 and has congratulated all the dignitaries who have won, respecting the public opinion expressed through the elections,’ said the statement issued by General Secretary Shankar Pokharel.

Newly elected Prime Minister Balendra Shah was also thanked. “Congratulations to Honorable Prime Minister Balen Shah and his cabinet for being successful in forming the government under his leadership with a huge majority,” the statement said.

He also thanked the voters, election commission, security agencies, employees, election police, observers, media workers and civil society who played a role in the completion of the election.

Until this meeting, UML had not made public any opinion about the election results. On the contrary, the elected executive chairman of the parliamentary party, Ram Bahadur Thapa, stated in the first meeting of the House of Representatives that the reasons behind the UML losing the election were the Nepali army, employees, Sushila Karki’s government and foreign powers.

Leaders strongly objected to his statement on Thursday. This issue was also raised in the secretariat meeting, and UML issued a statement correcting Thapa’s statement.

Although there was no formal review of the election, the leaders started the voice of leadership reorganization right after the election. Vice President Bishnu Prasad Paudel, Deputy Secretary General Yogesh Kumar Bhattarai and other leaders are openly discussing leadership change. According to sources, most of the officials are in favor of leadership change.

But when they did not say anything about how and when the leadership change, a signature campaign has been started to demand a special convention. Sources say that young leaders are particularly involved in this campaign.

After the suspension of Suhang Nemwang as the leader of the parliamentary party, the youth of UML are protesting at the party office demanding a change in leadership. They are demanding a change in leadership through activities like street demonstrations, placard displays, giving rose flowers to leaders.