Maoist SC fails to pick ministerial candidates

The Standing Committee of the UCPN (Maoist) which was supposed to finalise
the names of its remaining ministers in Jhala Nath Khanal cabinet on
Friday could not do so.

The Maoist SC did discuss about the expansion of the cabinet but could not
arrive at any decision, a source said.

However, party spokesperson Dina Nath Sharma claimed that the meeting
dwelled on issues concerning the party's sister organisations, not on the
list of ministerial candidates.

"We discussed issues concerning various wing of the party including
students, youth and intellectuals," he said.

The party has not been able to name its ministers with sheer number of
leaders from three camps- each loyal to party chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal
and vice chairmen Mohan Baidya and Baburam Bhattarai- vying for
ministerial berths.

In the meantime, the Moist leadership is scrambling to settle the dispute
within its labour wing and address growing discontent within the Young
Communist League (YCL) leadership after the formation of an identical
organisation, People's Volunteers Mobilisation Bureau, headed by SC member
Netra Bikram Chand.