Maoists defer central committee expansion

The Unified CPN (Maoist) has deferred the expansion of its Central Committee after it could not sort out the selection of new CC members.

A meeting of the incumbent central committee of the party held Thursday morning decided not to expand the central committee for now.

The same central committee had decided to expand the Maoist central committee to 175-members last week. The present committee is 137-membered.

Maoist leaders dwelt on selecting 37 members for the CC expansion for almost two weeks. Various Rajya Samitis of the party forwarded names of more than 200 candidates for the CC.

Even a task force formed led by party general secretary Ram Bahadur Thapa took a long time to prepare its report.

It had somehow prepared a list of more than 200 persons to be included in the CC.

Top leaders had agreed in principal to further expand the CC to about 250 members after it could not shortlist the recommendations.

However, in today's CC meeting the party suddenly decided it will not expand its CC saying the party would focus on constitution drafting and peace process rather.