As Nepal’s Maoist top brass travelled to New Delhi to meet leaders of the seven-party pro-democracy alliance for a joint movement against King Gyanendra’s “absolute monarchy”, a revolt broke out at home with two Maoist central committee members accusing chief Prachanda and ideologue Baburam Bhattarai of turning the organisation into a “private fief”.

A PTI report from New Delhi said Bhattarai and Krishna Bahadur Mohra were holding talks with pro-democracy leaders at an undisclosed location. It made no mention of Prachanda’s whereabouts.

Maoist CC members Rabindra Shrestha and Anukul today attacked Prachanda and Bhattarai for “suppressing the revolutionary trend being pursued by the youth... promoting factionalism to retain their hold over the party”.

There’s buzz that one senior leader of the Maoist army PLA is backing the revolt.