Dear respected Founder President, Chief Patron, Patrons, Advisors, President, VPs, General Secretary and NRN Colleagues You may already be aware about the current crisis of the NRN UK. I request all fellow NRN members to make their best effort to bring the consensus. From the 31 st of August, NRN UK has been going through a split and two parallel organisations will be running in the future if this is not resolved as quickly as possible. There are two election committees, both group have registered their candidacies with their relevant election committees and have now declared unopposed committee. There are a total of 5500 members, who have been registered with the election committee chaired by Dr Hem Raj Sharma and 6392 have been registered with the election committee chaired by Dr Puroshatam Paudel. Both sides have such large numbers of members and it is essential that NRN ICC do not ignore or disqualify any group as all of them are NRNs. I was told that only one group is likely to get recognition from the ICC. Unfortunately, it will cause large numbers of NRNs to be kept outside the mainstream NRN which may cause serious setback to our NRN campaign and may cause disruption to our global conference. Background of NRN UK Since 2009, NRN UK has been lead by the President with consensus. Surya Gurung led the NRN UK 2009 with two VPs Mahendra Kandel and Kul Acharya. NRN UK has been very effective and active on various NRN activities. Both of these VPs were finally two president candidates in 2011. Along with past presidents, and other senior NRN colleagues they made understanding to support Kul Acharya as president and Mahendra Kandel to carry on as VP for another two years. He was promised that they will fully support him for the term 2013-2015. Although Kul Acharya was unopposed by majority of NRNs in the UK, Surya Nembang filed his president candidacy along with Raj Kumar Tripathi on the position of National Coordinator at the lastminute of candidate nomination. The most of the other positions elected unopposed. It was reported that there were some mis-conducts in the election 2011 which were acknowledged by Prof Surya Sebedi. The main areas of mis-conduct were on the postal voting. At least 5 sacks of postal votes were not dropped at the post boxes so that the voters never received the ballet papers rather it was taken straight to somebody’s home and they voted themselves. The voters never got ballet papers and when they went to the election venue their names were already crossed out as the voted by postal service. Hundreds of voters didn’t get any opportunity to vote. It was claimed that this was done by the small group organized by Kul Acharya and Ram Sharan Simkhada. There were written complaints which were not investigated by both the election committee and the ICC. For 2913 election, the election committee was formed in May 2013 with minor dispute from current President candidate Mahendra Kandel that some of the proposed community leaders names were not included by the current president Kul Achrya. After forming of the election committee, it became clear that the current president Kul Acharya and a couple of other senior NRN colleagues were not sticking with their words which was given two years ago.Their preferred president candidate only became public after the election committee was formed to serve their interest. It also became clear that an ICC Member from the UK -Bishwo Adersha Pandit was appointed an observer of the UK election without any consultation from other ICC members (including myself) and the executive committee of the NRN UK. He was recommended by Kul Acharya and Hem Raj Sharma to serve their interest. Mr Pandit despite being an Election Observer clearly participated in the election campaign of one of the president candidates -Mr Chhetri. I had reported to the ICC president about his misconduct but no action has been taken against him. Some of the key events which eventfully caused big faction in NRN UK in chronicle order. 25/01/2012: Surya Nembang (President candidate for 2011 election) wrote complaint letter (by email) to investigate the election misconduct in 2011 addressing ICC president Jiba Lamicchane 29/01/2012: Surya Nembang wrote another letter (by email) to president Jiba Lamichhane to investigate the mis-conduct on NRN UK 2011 election 12/07/2013: Email was sent from Surya Nembang with the concern about the election committee 21/07/2013: I requested if I could join the election committee meeting as I had several suggestions to make the election fair and transparent. I was told to wait and will be given an opportunity to join towards the end of the meeting, I kept on waiting and the meetings concluded without giving me any opportunity to join and talk to them. I was later told to write by email. Such a big humiliation to an ICC member by the UK election committee! 25/07/2013: I wrote an email to the NCC UK President, Election Committee Chair, copied to the ICC President with the concern about the election and asking to expand the election committee, requested to organise meeting with election committee about the concern on various aspect of election process 03/08/2013: I wrote complaint letter to the ICC president about the act of an Election observer and ICC Member Bishow Pandit who openly participated in one of the President candidate election campaign on the 28 th July 2013, also questioned how was he appointed the observer without consultation with another ICC member of the UK. 11/08/2013: President Candidate Surya Nembang wrote further email demanding the election committee to be fully dissolved 12/08/13: NRN UK executive committee meeting finally approved to extend the current election committee members by two additional instead of asked 5-6 but was not implemented until 17 th August and later told that it will only be added after candidacy registration i.e. 31 st August 17/08/2013: NRN UK VP and President candidate Mahendra Kandel sent an urgent letter to NRN ICC president that due to serious concern about the current election committee and their behavior seen on 17 th august 2013 ie. allowing one of the candidates to collect forms or work as part of the election committee, blocking access to key NRN executive members and not adding two new members on election committee. Therefore Mahendra Kandel and his group have lost all the confidence in the election committee.The negotiation with the election acting chair couldn’t come to the agreement and they couldn’t submit the form to the election committee. There is no provision under the UK constitution to appoint another person of the election committee acting chair and it was also not discussed with the committee or key candidates. 18/08/2013: NRN ICC President Jiba Lamicchane sent an email to the relevant people proposing that he will ensure that the election committee will be extended with two people, European RC Kumar Panta will come for observation, will get the window for members registration who couldn’t be registered on the 17 th of August. 19/08/2013: Nrn member and vice president candidate sent an email asking for the breakdown of the register of members and questioning the financial transparency of the NRN UK and requesting the audited accounts 20/08/2013: NRN UK VP and president candidate Mahendra Kandel emailed ICC President Jiba Lamichhane replying his 18 th Aug email and explaining why the members couldn’t be registered, said in order to make the election fair ICC observer must be observing from the day of membership registration as they do not have any confidence in current election committee. Due to postal voting system in the UK and the currently election committee, it was apparent that fair election was unlikely 22/08/2013: NRN UK meeting organized after the request from current VP Mahendra Kandel. Unfortunately, this meeting couldn’t bring any conclusion. 24/08/2013: A Meeting called by Prof Surya Subedi to get the consensus failed 25/08/2013: NRN general members gathered for a special AGM in Woolwich, meeting with the current executive committee, which failed to create any solution. This meeting decided to form a new election committee by dissolving the current one led by Dr Hemraj Sharma. This is the only current solution for all the members who were not registered by current NRN UK election committee 30/08/2013: Meeting called by NRN UK Patron Prof Surya Subedi at 7pm for negotiation was not attended by Kul Acharya, Yogen Chhetri by cancelling at the last minute while both Mahendra Kandel and Surya Nembang were waiting at the location near to the meeting till8.30pm 03/09/2013: NRN UK current President and National Coordinator issued letter saying they have dismissed ICC Member Rajen Kandel and VP Mahendra Kandel without properly following the rules of constitution. There have been several discussions after this to resolve matter without any success. I strongly feel that Chief Patron, President, General Secretary and Founding President need to put both groups together and strongly persuade them to agree an amicable solution. If NRN UK divided then it will send very strong negative message in the World. Best wishes Rajen Kandel ICC Member UK
Posted on: Sat, 14 Sep 2013 13:36:15 +0000
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