All efforts to bring about reconciliation have gone up in smoke and the Nepali Maoist Party has split. The new faction will pursue ‘people’s revolution’ as its goal. The breakaway faction of the ruling Unified Communist Party(Maoist) has been named Communist Party of Nepal(Maoist) and will be headed by Mohan Baidya, former vice-chairman of the party. Another leader, Ram Bahadur Thapa has become general secretary of the new party. The split is unlikely to impact the present Government. Maoists were the largest party in the dissolved Constituent Assembly and head the present ruling coalition comprising UCPN(M) and Madhesi parties from the Terai region.
The Constituent Assembly was dissolved last month. President Ram Baran Yadav has termed the present Government a ‘caretaker’ one. Baidya was at loggerheads with UCPN(M) chief Pushpa Kamal Dahal and Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai for their deviation from the party’s revolutionary policy and concentrating instead on peace and the drafting of a Constitution. He had rejected Dahal’s seven point proposal to correct the party’s mistakes. The new faction is also unhappy with the decision to hand over arms belonging to Maoist combatants leading to their induction in the Nepal Army. It is equally dissatisfied with the party’s growing closeness to India. Baidya said that his faction would try to scrap old agreements with India like the Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement as well as oppose new treaties with India. While the faction will not affect the strength of the main Maoist party, it may cause renewal of violence in the Himalayan state.