The party has deployed its leaders outside their home constituencies so that they could better identify where the problems are and come up with ways to fix them. Even the party chair, KP Sharma Oli, and other senior leaders are attending the programs being held at the local level.
A high-level team consisting of the party vice-chairman, general secretary and other office bearers is overseeing the campaign. According to an official document of the party, based on the key findings of the campaign, the team will prepare a review report and submit it to the party leadership. The UML will then prepare for the annual party program based on the review report submitted by the team. The mission has a simple task, says UML leader Raghuji Panta, which is to involve more youths in the party. As one of the largest political parties, it is difficult to run the party’s affairs smoothly, he adds while noting that the mission like this helps the UML connect with the people at the grassroots. The mission aims to bridge the gap between youths, laymen, and the party leadership, enabling the party to work for the people more effectively, says Panta. The UML has become the first party to run its affairs in a systematic way after last year’s general elections. Two other major parties—the NC and the Maoist Center—meanwhile are riven by factional politics and caught in an organizational mess. Asked why the UML felt the need to connect with the grassroots, leaders say a couple of factors forced them to pay special attention to the way the main party and sister organizations were functioning across the country. First is the vertical split in the UML after its former leader Madhav Kumar Nepal went on to form his own party, CPN (Unified Socialist), in 2022. If not for the split, the UML was confident of becoming the largest party, ahead of the NC. With the campaign, the UML leadership hopes to bring back the party supporters and cadres who defected to the Unified Socialist. Second reason behind the UML campaign is to assuage the discontent among the voters. Among the political parties, there is a tendency to ignore the grassroots level once the election season is over. This has created a serious public dissatisfaction against mainstream political parties. The UML wants to placate the public by sending its leaders to the grassroots to bridge the divide between the party and the ordinary voters. In the last election, the UML had many problems including intra-party betrayal and non-cooperation from voters at its own political base, which eventually cost the party the election in some constituencies. One UML leader says the party wants to rule out the repetition of such problems in future elections. Another factor that prompted the UML to launch the campaign is the emergence of new political forces like the Rastriya Swatantra Party, and the revival of old ones, like the Rastriya Prajatantra Party. A chunk of UML and NC votes were lost to the RSP in last year’s general elections. The RSP managed to win 20 seats in the Parliament, which is a lot for a new party. If the party does not get serious about reviving the people’s trust, it will lose more supporters in future, says a UML leader. As the UML’s efforts to unite, or at least forge a working alliance with the Maoist party have already failed twice, the party is planning to contest all future elections alone. The party leadership is planning to secure a majority in the upcoming elections without the help of an electoral alliance. UML Chairman Oli told the party supporters at his home constituency in Jhapa recently that the mission was launched with the purpose of securing 51 percent votes in the next elections. Some UML leaders say as the party has been relegated to the opposition benches with the latest decision of Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal to ally with the NC, they now have time to focus on building the party’s organizational strength. They are of the view that as the coalition government led by Dahal will not be able to deliver much, its failure will play in favor of the UML. Major purposes of the campaign
- Distributing and renewing party membership
- Identifying local problems
- Identifying internal issues
- Encouraging youths to join UML
- Strengthening party committees
