The Unified Communist Party of Nepal Maoist (UCPN)-affiliated Young Communist League (YCL) cadres based in the Far Western Nepal on Monday protested against their own mother party. They have demanded that they be recognized as equivalent to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) fighters and be provided the same salaries and facilities that the PLA members get—a demand neither heard before nor registered anywhere institutionally.
Lalit Thapa, the Secretary of the YCL Thuruwan State Committee in the Far Western region, organized a press meet in Dhangadhi to inform that the YCL and disqualified Maoist fighters seized the documents of the party offices and padlocked them in the region.
This new move by the Maoist cadres seems to put the Maoist central leadership into an unpredictable difficulty.
The incident has occurred a day after a Maoist politbureau member and current Commerce and Supply Minister Lekhraj Bhatta, an origin of the Far Western region himself, publicly expressed his willingness to lead a movement against his own government and Maoist party.
The superhike of market prices and the artificial scarcity of oil and gas in Nepal have been attributed to the most corrupt business community, bureaucracy and the government of which Bhatta is a minister.