KATHMANDU – Nepali Congress (NC) senior leader Ramchandra Poudel has reaffirmed his commitment to continue striving for safeguarding the democratic values.
At a programme organized by the NC’s working committee Sindhupalchowk at Chabahil in Kathmandu today, senior leader Poudel reminisced how he had given his word to then NC President Girija Prasad Koirala to strive for democratic values when late Koirala had offered him for Head of the State’s position.
Stating that he had turned down the offer back then since the threat at democracy were looming, Poudel also recalled the incident in the past how he was aspiring to protect democratic values. “There’s a huge threat to democracy by the political leaders themselves. If the public follow the leaders blindly, it would be misfortune for the democracy,” he opined, pledging, “I have already commenced my crusade to protect the democratic values from my hometown Tanahu. This crusade will continue until there is democratization completely.”
Reiterating that he was working towards democratization of his party, Poudel called to end the tendency to become a strong leader of the weak party so as to foster democracy. The senior leader argued that the strong leader of a weak party would bring forth autocrat and the cadres should also be alert. He also claimed that there were cases of irregularities in the distribution of the party’s active membership.
“Honest cadres were sidelined through hooliganism,” he ranted. He cited the incident in Dadeldhura district and said that the ward level convention was organized by sidelining party’s district leaders.
NC, having over 850,000 active members, is going to organize its 14th national convention on November 25-29 in Kathmandu. In today’s programme, NC Sindhupalchowk chapter Vice-President Shiva Sunar, secretary Bil Bahadur Tamang, leader Dev Prasad Baniya among others expressed their confidence that the upcoming much-awaited national convention would play an important role in further democratizing the NC.
