Kathmandu : The secretariat meeting of ruling CPN called for Friday has been postponed as Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal is busy writing the report to be presented to the standing committee meeting called in Kathmandu on December 15 and 16.

Dahals’ press associate Bishnu Sapkota confirmed that the meeting has been postponed and added that it may be convened on Saturday. The party is preparing to propose statute amendment in the standing committee meeting to be convened after a gap of almost one year.

The secretariat meeting on Monday had decided to amend the party statute to change its political line and create the post of vice-chairman. It had decided to take the proposal of statute amendment to the standing committee meeting. “The party’s political line will be changed to ‘moving toward communism establishing scientific socialism’ in the statute,” Spokesperson Narayan Kaji Shrestha had said after the meeting.

There was a longstanding dispute in the party about political line following unification of the then CPN-UML and CPN (Maoist Center). It had finally kept socialism-oriented people’s democracy as the party’s ideology incorporating the people’s multiparty democracy of the then CPN-UML and the people’s democracy for the 21st century of the then CPN (Maoist Center). The party had also decided to add the position of vice-chairman.

Article 18 of the current statute has provision of two chairmen, two senior leaders, a spokesperson and a general secretary in the 441-strong central committee. The position of vice-chairman will be added after the amendment.Chairman duo KP Sharma Oli and Dahal during the secretariat meeting in July had proposed to make Bam Dev Gautam the vice-chairman. The meeting had decided to send the proposal to the standing committee for endorsement as the statute had no such provision. The amendment will pave the way for Gautam to become vice-chairman.