Nepal Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Oli. (AP Photo/File)

Prime Minister K P Oli on Thursday told his rival Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda that he would not resign, and that he would face the Nepal Communist Party’s standing committee meeting on Friday.

The developments came after a two-and-a-half hour meeting between Oli, Prachanda and another dissident leader and former prime minister Madhav Kumar Nepal. A high-placed source told The Indian Express that Oli’s parting message was: “I will not quit but face the standing committee meeting tomorrow”.

The standing committee meeting that began three weeks ago had been adjourned four times, last on July 10, for a week on the insistence of a group of 11 party leaders in order to attempt to resolve the issues.

However, with Thursday’s meeting ending in failure, sources feared that the party could be split.

The two top leaders — Oli and Prachanda — met one-on-one at least four times during this period. Oli has maintained that while he was willing to address any issue, he would not resign under pressure. As per a party sources, Oli had told Prachanda that resigning either as party chief or prime minister was out of the question.