KATHMANDU: A day after four former Prime Ministers shared a common stage to advocate for communist unification, CPN (UML) leader Gokul Baskota launched a scathing attack on the initiative, labeling the renewed push for leftist unity a superficial tactic driven by political desperation.

Baskota’s remarks came as a direct reaction to Sunday’s program marking the birth anniversary of late communist ideologue Madan Bhandari.

The event saw top leftist leaders—including former Prime Ministers Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’, KP Sharma Oli, Madhav Kumar Nepal and Jhala Nath Khanal—sharing a platform and underscoring the necessity of a unified communist front.

Taking to social media, the outspoken UML leader and former Minister for Information and Communications dismissed the ongoing rhetoric of unification, comparing the fractured alliance to a repeatedly broken clay pot.

“A melody filled with the desire to glue together a repeatedly broken clay pot seems to be playing again,” Baskota wrote on his Facebook page.

Baskota argued that the top leadership is generating a false narrative of “imminent danger” to the country solely to shield their own administrative and political failures.

He termed the unity narrative “beautiful in appearance, but a blunt weapon in substance,” designed primarily to extend the leaders’ grip on power.

Laying down a challenge to the veteran leaders who have dominated the political landscape for decades, Baskota stated that true political course-correction requires accountability and generational transition rather than backroom mergers.

“If the goal is genuine reform and gaining political strength, first admit that splitting [the party] in the past was a mistake,” Baskota added, challenging the current top brass. “Can you step down yourselves and ask your colleagues to move forward?”

Baskota’s sharp critique highlights the deep-seated skepticism remaining within second-generation leaders of the Nepal’s communist parties, even as top bosses publicly signal a thaw in relations and pitch a grand leftist coalition.