Chandra Prakash Mainali

Chandra Prakash Mainali (* 1953 ) is a communist politician in Nepal .

In 1971 Chandra Prakash Mainali was part of a group of young leaders in the Jhapa District Committee of the Communist Party of Nepal (Pushpa Lal). The other main leaders of this group were Mainali’s brother Radha Krishna Mainali and Mohan Chandra Adhikari. The group was inspired by the Naxalbari uprising in India and its leader, Charu Majumdar . In May 1971, the group initiated an armed uprising and began killing landlords and other known "class enemies".

The party leadership did not approve of the methods used by the Jhapa movement and Mainali and his supporters became an independent group. The uprising was quickly crushed by state security forces, and hundreds of Mainali's supporters were killed, captured or driven into exile . Despite this setback, the group continued its political work with the underground peasants of Jhapa.

In 1975 the survivors of the Jhapa movement founded the All Nepal Communist Revolutionary Coordination Committee (Marxist-Leninist) . Other smaller groups merged into the ANCRCC (ML). On December 26, 1978, the ANCRCC (ML) organized a meeting to establish the Communist (Marxist-Leninist) Party of Nepal. Chandra Prakash Mainali was elected general secretary of the party. The KPN was an underground party and carried out small armed attacks against the government and feudal landlords.

However, the strategy of armed struggle proved unsuccessful. The party changed its political approach and began to focus on mobilizing the masses for a democratic movement. Chandra Prakash Mainali, who clearly identified with the party's initial militant phase, was dismissed from his post as general secretary and replaced by Jhala Nath Khanal .

The Marxist-Leninist CPN later merged into the Communist Party of Nepal - United Marxist-Leninists (CPN-UML). When this party formed a minority government under the leadership of Man Mohan Adhikari in 1994 , Chandra Prakash Mainali was elected as the legislature's spokesman . However, he was defeated in the election to Ram Chandra Poudel . Mainali was later appointed Minister for Local Development and Supply.

In 1998 the CPN-UML was shaken by internal disputes. Chandra Prakash Mainali and Bam Dev Gautam led a splinter group called the Communist Party of Nepal (Marxist-Leninist) (CPN (ML)). In the 1999 general election, the CPN (ML) suffered a catastrophic defeat against the CPN-UML. The party received 6.4% of the vote, but did not get a single seat in parliament.

At the General Assembly of the CPN (ML) in 2000, Chandra Prakash Mainali competed against Bam Dev Gautam for the post of General Secretary. While Gautam advocated a democratic multiparty system, as formulated by Madan Kumar Bhandari , Mainali called for a more radical political approach.

In 2002 the CPN (ML) and the CPN-UML reunited. Since Chandra Prakash Mainali refused to support the line of the united party, he re-established a party, the Communist Party of Nepal (Marxist-Leninist) reconstituted . He remains the general secretary of his party.

During the anti-government protests between 2002 and 2006, Chandra Prakash Mainali served as the leader of the United Left Front (ULF). For some time he was chairman of the ULF. After the government was overthrown on February 1, 2005, Mainali was placed under house arrest. House arrest was lifted on February 25th.