KATHMANDU, Aug 6: CPN (Maoist Center) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal has revealed that his party had attempted to bring down the Sher Bahadur Deuba-led government in a bid to block the endorsement of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) compact.
Speaking at the launch of the book “MCC in Nepal” authored by party leader Leelamani Pokharel on Wednesday, Dahal said the Maoist Center came under immense pressure over the MCC issue. “To prevent the MCC from being passed, we were even willing to let the UML lead the government, with our support from outside,” he said, describing the compact as a matter of national importance.
Dahal shared that he, along with senior leaders Narayan Kaji Shrestha, Dev Gurung and Shakti Basnet, directly proposed the idea to UML Chairman KP Sharma Oli. However, the response they received was, according to Dahal, harsh and demeaning. “The language used by UML was even more bitter than that of the Nepali Congress,” he recalled.
Dahal added that the UML responded with a four-point message, in which Oli—then the leader of the opposition—stated that not a single comma or full stop in the MCC agreement should be changed. Oli further warned that if the Maoist Center did not cooperate, the Nepali Congress and UML would join hands to form a new government and pass the compact with a clear majority. “That warning put us in a very difficult position,” Dahal said.
'PM Deuba has insulted parliamentary committee'
Despite this, Dahal insisted that he opposed the MCC in its original form until the very end and urged his party members to take to the streets. “We resisted as much as we could, but once Congress and UML came together, the numbers in Parliament were against us. We couldn’t stop it,” he admitted.
He went on to say that Oli’s stance on endorsing the MCC without amendments was even more rigid than that of the Nepali Congress. “We expected at least some flexibility from the UML, but Oli proved to be even tougher,” Dahal added.
UML’s inclination toward Indo-Pacific Strategy
Dahal also accused the UML of showing eagerness to align Nepal with the US-led Indo-Pacific Strategy (IPS). “They were the ones actively pushing for Nepal’s inclusion in the IPS and even gave the green light to the State Partnership Program (SPP),” he alleged.
In the end, the Maoist Center chose to boycott the parliamentary process altogether—opting to walk out and abstain from the vote. “Whatever we did, the MCC was going to pass anyway. We lacked the strength to resist it through revolt or revolution,” he remarked.
At that point, Dahal said, legal and constitutional experts advised introducing an interpretive declaration to “save face,” which he believes created room for future opposition.
The controversial US grant project, the MCC compact, was eventually endorsed by the House of Representatives on February 27, 2022, along with a 12-point interpretive declaration. At the time, Deuba served as prime minister with the backing of the Maoist Center and other coalition partners, while the UML was in opposition following the split of the then Nepal Communist Party. Dahal’s remarks shed new light on the deep divisions that emerged within the ruling coalition during the highly contentious MCC debate.
