Top leaders of Nepal's vanquished Maoists party today launched a soul searching session on how to recover from a humiliating defeat in the November 19 polls.
The politburo of the Unified Communist Party of Nepal- Maoist (UCPN-M) is meeting to chalk out the future course of action and work out a strategy to revamp the party's structure after the drubbing it received in the Constituent Assembly elections.
During the meeting top leaders have vowed to start massive campaign from the grass-roots level to strengthen the party's structure, sources said.
Former prime minister and senior leader Baburam Bhattarai is leading the efforts to rebuild the party.
Bhattarai had proposed to connect to the public through social media just a day ahead of the party's Central Committee meeting convened to discuss the reasons behind the party's defeat in the November polls. He has also proposed to elect party members, rather than have them selected by the top leaders.
The recent defeat of the Maoists has raised questions on party supremo Prachanda's unchallenged leadership, and Bhattarai's remarks have created ripples within the unit. The main reason behind his remark was to create pressure on Prachanda to hand over the leadership of the party, sources said.
Bhattarai resigned from the post of Vice-Chairman in June following a dispute over the sharing of key posts within the party.
Bhattarai's spouse Hisila Yami as well as three of Prachanda's close relatives, including his daughter Renu Dahal, were defeated in the recent polls. Prachanda himself managed a narrow victory from a constituency in southern Nepal, but was defeated from a seat in Kathmandu.
The Maoists, who swept the country's first post-war elections in 2008, won just 80 out of total of 575 seats and came a distant third in the November 19 polls.
The Nepali Congress bagged 105 of the 240 directly elected seats but did not secure a clear majority to form government on its own. The CPN-UML was the second largest party with 91 seats.
The Maoists, who ended their decade-long "People's War" with a peace deal in 2006, led a series of coalition governments but failed to write a new constitution, forcing the collapse of the first Constituent Assembly in May 2012.
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