500 Maoist cadres join Nepali Congress
Altogether 500 Maoist cadres on Saturday deserted the ruling party and
joined the opposition Nepali Congress, saying the organisation lacks
transparency and democratic culture.
They include a dozen district committee members and one hundred area
committee members. Nepali Congress president Sushil Koirala handed over
party membership to the former Maoist workers.
Welcoming the former guerrillas, Nepali Congress president Koirla asked
the Maoists to lay down arms, to dissolve their paramilitary
organisation, the Young Communist League, and return the seized property
in order to win the heart of the people and to clear their
international image.
He asked the Maoists to conclude the peace process at the earliest and
to draft a democratic constitution so as to institutionalise democracy
and establish lasting peace in the country.
There is no place for totalitarianism in this modern world, he said
adding that the Nepali Congress will not compromise on the issues of
human rights and democracy.
Nepali Congress general secretary Krishna Sitaula called the Maoists to
be sincere towards concluding the peace process and drafting the
constitution and warned that if the Maoists do not adopt peaceful
politics and democratic pluralism, they will be finished.
Ram Sharan Maharjan, the Maoist district committee member who joined the
NC said that the Maoists raise high sounding slogans but failed to
translate them into practice.
There is no transparency and democratic culture in the Maoist party, he pointed out.
Rita Maharjan, another former Maoist area committee member, who joined
NC, said that she joined the democratic party after she found that the
policy and principles of the democratic party was more attractive than
that of the Maoist party which has many contradictions.
Source: Thehindu
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