CPN-UML has suspended senior leader Madhav Kumar Nepal and vice-chair Bhim Rawal from party membership for six months.

Party Chairman and Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli informed both the leaders that they were suspended from the party for six months saying that their clarification for conducting anti-party activities didn’t express any remorse.

Oli had sought clarification from Nepal, Rawal, Surendra Prasad Pandey, and Ghanashyam Bhusal for carrying out factional activities.

In the suspension letter, Oli has told Nepal and Rawal that it was their last chance to reform themselves and warned that if they still didn’t mend their ways, he would take stricter action against them.

If their views and activities are in favor of the party, the party may decide to reduce the suspension period even in the midst of the suspension and further action may be taken in the middle of the suspension period they continue with anti-party activities, the letter reads.

Following the suspension, Rawal’s wrath was visible in his Twitter posts. Rawal said since Oli was illegally holding the post of the 10th General Convention Committee chair, his decision to suspend was not acceptable.

Rawal added that Oli’s action against him and Nepal violated the party statute and directives of the ninth General Convention.

The UML faction led by Madhav Kumar Nepal and Jhalanath Khanal had objected to amendments made by Oli on March 12 to the party statute and induction of 23 new members in the party’s central committee.

The Nepal-Khanal faction has demanded that the old party structure and committees that existed before the UML’s merger with the CPN-Maoist Centre be revived.

Oli, however, has refused to rescind any of his decisions.

Nepal had sided with Pushpa Kamal Dahal before the Supreme Court ruled that the party name — Nepal Communist Party (NCP) – belonged to someone else.

The Dahal-Nepal duo had removed Oli from key posts in NCP when the party was still legal. But both leaders returned to their old parties and status — UML and CPN-MC — after the Supreme Court’s decision.