Communist Party of Nepal (Marxist-Leninist) (1998)
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Communist Party of Nepal (Marxist-Leninist), a splinter-group from the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) formed on March 5, 1998. CPN(ML) was led by Bam Dev Gautam and C.P. Mainali. CPN(ML) had revolted against the Mahakali river treaty with India. The split was however largely seen as motivated by personal political influence ambitions. CPN(ML) described the split in the following wordings in the manifesto:
- "CPN-ML was born as a result of revolt by revolutionary and patriotic force against national capitalist, and liquidationist policies and programmes of the CPN-UML. This was not the revolt for the sake of revolt; it was the revolt to restructure and re-organise the communist movement based on the principles of revolutionary Marxism."[1]
CPN(ML) won over the majority of the party membership in the Kathmandu Valley and almost half of the parliamentary group of CPN(UML)[citation needed]. From September to December that year, CPN(ML) took part in the government led by G.P. Koirala.
In the 1999 parliamentary elections CPN(ML) got 6.4% of the votes nationwide, but failed to win a single seat. The division of the communists directly contributed to the electoral victory of the Nepali Congress (which had less votes than CPN(ML) and CPN(UML) combined).
In 2002 CPN(ML) reunified with CPN(UML). But Mainali refused to go along, and reconstituted his own CPN(ML).
