Following the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, political pundits are predicting that Maoist leader Prachanda as well as calculative and sharp politicians like him, know the skills of the political art. Prachanda, who was also credited to divide other parties by raising issues such as ethnicity, finally saw the split of his own party.  All the judgments about Prachanda finally turned out to be a fiasco when his long associate and guru Mohan Baidhya Kiran led the splinter group.


Although Baidhya also forced Prachanda to resign from parliamentary party leadership which paved the way to Dr. Bhattrai to become the prime minister. When Prachanda’s position gradually weakened in the party, Baidhya’s decision to split the party will further strengthen the position of Baburam Bhattarai. Although it seems the split of Maoist party will strengthen the hand of Prachanda, it will be Baburam who will be in the strong position.


By rejecting the offer of the party not to go on a foreign trip, prime minister Baburam Bhattarai has shown that he has now more bargaining power with Prachanda than in the past. On Tuesday morning, politburo meeting of UCPN-Maoist suggested prime minister to withdraw his visit to Rio given the country’s internal problems and split in the party.


However, prime minister Bhattarai did not pay much attention to the suggestion of his party leader. The prime minister also discarded the suggestions of the two main opposition parties not to go to Rio. “The overall scenario showed that the split of UCPN-Maoist just strengthened the position of the prime minister. Baidhya, Prachanda and others are the losers in the game.  Baidhya, whose decision paved the way to make Maoist-Madheshi alliance, accused Prachanda for betraying the ideology for joining the hands with Madheshis.


After the split in the party, it is Maoist leader Prachanda who is going to be a loser as he has relied on the strength of prime minister Bhattarai. “This will weaken Prachanda who is too much tied with Baburam,” agreed leader of breakaway Maoist party Ram Bahadur Thapa Badal.


Although Prachanda is projected as a strong leader with reportedly making investment in all the country’s major media outlets, in reality, the situation is different. Neither the media are supportive to him nor his own prime minister.