The parliamentary party meeting of the Dahal-Nepal faction in Province 1 has decided to remove Buddhi Kumar Rajbhandari from the post of Nepal Communist Party’s chief whip. Rajbhandari is close to the Oli faction.

According to Tanka Angbuhang, the NCP’s deputy parliamentary party leader in Province 1 assembly, the meeting held on Sunday decided to relieve Rajhandari from the post and hand over the responsibility of the chief whip to Saubhagya Rai.

“The meeting chaired by the NCP’s parliamentary party also decided to call back Rajbhandari and province assembly member Indramani Parajuli from the Business Advisory Committee of the assembly. A decision has been taken to appoint province assembly members Upendra Ghimire and Lila Ballav Adhikari in the committee,” said Angbuhang, adding that the party would soon inform the province assembly secretariat about its decision.

Rajbhandari and Parajuli have been representing the NCP in the Business Advisory Committee.

Provincial Chief Somnath Adhikari has called the winter session of the province assembly for January 20. The Dahal-Nepal faction recalled Rajbhandari and Parajuli to represent its group in the Business Advisory Committee, which prepares a worklist to be discussed in the assembly meeting. There are 11 members in the Business Advisory Committee headed by Speaker Pradip Kumar Bhandari.

Gopal Prasad Parajuli, secretary at the province assembly secretariat, said that his office had not received any information regarding the removal of the chief whip and the exchange of NCP’s representatives in the Business Advisory Committee.

Angbuhang claimed that the parliamentary party meeting was held in the presence of 40 provincial assembly members of the NCP. However, assembly member Kul Prasad Shamba, who is considered to be close with the Dahal-Nepal faction, said that he was not present in the meeting that decided to recall the chief whip. He admitted that a few members of his group remained absent in the meeting.

There are a total of 67 NCP members in the provincial assembly of Province 1. As many as 38 members are close to the Dahal-Nepal faction while 26 are with Chief Minister Sherdhan Rai who is close to the Oli group.

The rival faction continued taking action against the province assembly members of the Dahal-Nepal faction after 37 members of the group filed a no-confidence motion against Chief Minister Rai a few days ago. The Dahal-Nepal faction removed Rai from the post of parliamentary party leader and elected Bhim Acharya as the new leader. Chief Minister Rai has also suspended 16 members who had signed the no-trust-motion filed against him.

Hikmat Karki, minister for Internal Affairs and Law who is also the member secretary of the Business Advisory Committee, said a faction cannot remove the chief whip as Chief Minister Rai is the parliamentary party leader as per the constitution of the parliamentary party.

On Monday, the Dahal-Nepal group relieved Shankar Pokharel and Prithvi Subba Gurung from the posts of the party’s provincial in-charge. The group’s standing committee meeting held in Kathmandu decided to remove Pokharel as the in-charge of Lumbini Province and Gurung from Gandaki Province. The meeting chaired by Madhav Kumar Nepal also decided to appoint Yuvaraj Gyawali as the in-charge of Lumbini and Devendra Paudel as the in-charge of Gandaki.