After a punishing run of election defeats and a wave of government asset probes, Nepal’s two biggest communist rivals, UML chairman KP Sharma Oli and NCP coordinator Pushpa Kamal Dahal, are quietly moving back toward each other. The two have been holding talks in recent weeks, and Dahal told a program in Biratnagar that the process of reunification and collaboration among communist forces is moving ahead, promising cooperation with the UML in Parliament, on the streets, and at the local level. Oli, for his part, raised the case for left unity at a UML office-bearers meeting, citing the government’s moves against his party and the arrest of Vice-President Bishnu Poudel in the asset laundering investigation. The thaw became visible when four former prime ministers, Dahal, Oli, Madhav Kumar Nepal, and Jhala Nath Khanal, shared a stage at a symposium marking Madan Bhandari’s 75th birth anniversary, with former President Bidya Bhandari, herself reportedly eyeing a return to active politics, as chief guest. It was the first time Oli and Dahal appeared together since the Gen Z movement.
The arithmetic helps explain the warmth. The UML holds 25 seats in the House and the NCP 17, and leaders calculate that together they can squeeze the government from both Parliament and the streets, already finding common cause against the displacement of squatters and the scrapping of trade unions. The NCP has formally decided to cooperate with the left, while the UML is set to weigh the proposal at its upcoming central committee meeting, and second-tier leaders from both sides are reportedly in dialogue about even joining provincial governments together. The NCP’s own election review concluded that a divided left was a key reason for its losses, noting that nine communist parties running separately still pulled more than four million proportional votes between them.
History, though, counsels caution. Oli and Dahal first came together in 2017 and won nearly two-thirds of the public vote, only for their Nepal Communist Party to collapse within two years and ten months amid a bitter power struggle that ended with the Supreme Court formally splitting the UML and the Maoists in 2021. A renewed pairing after the 2022 polls lasted barely two months. Analysts read the latest courtship the same way. As political scientist Krishna Pokharel put it, the two get together when they are in trouble, with a history of separating once they regain power. They also remain split on first principles, since Dahal backed the Gen Z movement while Oli has branded it a serious conspiracy, even as both now favour amending the constitution in line with what they call its original spirit. With local and provincial elections due next year, leaders on both sides argue there is no other path forward for the left than to set aside old egos and unite.
