Nepali Samajwadi Party, RJPN Unite to Form ‘Janata Samajbadi Party’

While the global countries are uniting to fight the coronavirus, the Nepali Government is on the verge of breakdown due to internal political chaos.

The nation’s opposition parties, Samajwadi Party and Rastriya Janata Party Nepal (RJPN), have decided to merge and launch a new political party on April 23, 2020.

As per the unification deal, the new party will be named as “Janata Samajbadi Party (People’s Socialist Party)”.

The unification document was signed by-

Rastriya Janata Party Nepal

• Mahantha Thakur
• Rajendra Mahato
• Mahendra Raya Yadav
• Saratsingh Bhandari

Samajwadi Party

• Dr. Baburam Bhattarai
• Upendra Yadav
• Ashok Rai
• Rajendra Shrestha

The new party will use the flag of Samajwadi Party and election symbol of RJPN and will be headed by Mahanta Thakur for time being.

Former PM and Co-chair of the Samajwadi Party Baburam Bhattarai tweeted the unification between the two parties on Wednesday midnight.

The merger decision surfaced in response to the introduction of two ordinances by Prime Minister KP Oli’s cabinet.

The Nepali President Bidhya Devi Bhandari issued two ordinances to amend the provisions of the Constitutional Council (Functions Duties and Powers) Act and Political Party on April 20, 2020.

With the new ordinance, the political leaders can split the party if they have 40% support either in the central committee or the parliamentary party.

With the second ordinance, the Constitutional Council can convene a meeting even without the participation of the main opposition party leader. In those scenarios, the prime minister makes constitutional appointments.

The opposition parties, especially these two Madesh-based parties, became alert after the ruling party issued the ‘controversial’ ordinances.

The leaders of the newly launched Janata Samajwadi Party have reached the Office of the Election Commission of Nepal to officially register the party today, i.e., April 23, 2020.

The tensions currently engulfing Nepali politics are very daunting, especially when the country is reeling under the socio-economic crisis inflicted by the coronavirus pandemic.

So far, Nepal has confirmed 45 coronavirus infection cases. Despite having an insignificant number of COVID-19 cases, the country should be on high alert as it has no proper healthcare facilities to cope up with the outbreak.