November 10: The Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industries (FNCCI) has postponed its special general assembly scheduled for November 15. The special general assembly was called to discuss the issue of statute amendment to elect a new president.

As per the current provision, the senior vice president of FNCCI automatically becomes the next president after the term of the incumbent president expires. But a section of the FNCCI was lobbying for directly elected president.

The deferral of the special general assembly has paved way for Senior Vice President Shekhar Golchha to lead the FNCCI in the next term. This has also effectively ended the power struggle that had surfaced due to a sharp division among two groups within FNCCI since a year.

A meeting of the statute amendment committee of the FNCCI headed by FNCCI Vice President Chandra Prasad Dhakal on Friday (November 8) decided to postpone the special general assembly.

Dhakal along with a few other vice presidents had been lobbying against Golchha leading the federation as the three-year term of the incumbent president Bhavani Rana comes to an end soon.

The committee headed by Dhakal was supposed to submit a 35-point proposal at the special general assembly to amend the statute, that would prevent Golchha from becoming the next president. However, Dhakal backed out after other members of FNCCI during Friday’s meeting objected to the statute amendment saying that the committee had not fulfilled the due process for amendment.

Dhakal said that the meeting agreed to continue with the current provision for selecting the president as a new process would invite unnecessary competition among the FNCCI members.

The FNCCI had been sharply divided into two poles for the upcoming election. Former president Dhakal and his camp was hell bent on not allowing Senior Vice President Shekhar Golchha from leading the federation while other former presidents of FNCCI had been backing Golchha.

Dhakal, who was until now demanding a directly elected president, was the one who took the initiative earlier to amend the statute to allow the senior vice president to automatically take charge of the federation.