After a surprise merger, Janata Samajbadi registers at the EC

KATHMANDU, April 23: After a surprise announcement between Rastriya Janata Party Nepal (RJPN) and Samajbadi Party at midnight, newly formed Janata Samajbadi Party has registered at the Election Commission.

Upendra Yadav, Rajendra Mahato, Dr Shivaji Yadav, Rajendra Shrestha, Sarad Singh Bhandari, Keshav Jha, among others reached the EC and applied for the registration of their newly formed party.

The merger between the two regional parties – the unification exercise had not made any headway for the past one year – came two days after President Bidya Devi Bhandari, on recommendation of the Council of Ministers, issued ordinances related to Political Parties and Constitutional Council despite reservations from the ruling party.

The ordinance related to political parties seek an amendment to the Political Parties Act which paves way for a party to split with 40 percent support from either party central committee or parliamentary party while the second one allows the Council to convene of meeting without the presence of the opposition leaders.

‘BLOW TO OLI’S DIRTY SCHEME’

The merger will give the newly formed party with 33 lawmakers making it the third largest party in the parliament, which is a hammer blow to Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli’s dirty scheme to split the Upendra Yadav led-Samajbadi Party.

The hurried midnight merger came after Samajbadi’s Vice-chair Renu Yadav opted to take advantage of the new ordinance to form a new party.

But Yadav’s seven lawmakers (Surendra Yadav, Istiyak Rai, Pradeep Yadav, Umashankar Argariya, Kaludevi Biswakarma and Renuka Gurung and Yadav herself) now will not have a 40 percent threshold to split the party.

“After we sensed that Samajbadi is about the split, we announced merger. There is no possibility that RJPN and Samajbadi will break in the future,” Rajendra Mahato told reporters.

“We decided to unite to eclipse Oli’s schemes of party split.”

“The remaining process of the merger will move ahead after the nationwide lockdown ends,” he added. The newly formed party has decided to use the flag of Samajbadi Party and election symbol RJP’s umbrella.

LOT OF DRAMA

There was a lot of drama on play hours before the RJPN and Samajbadi announced merger.

According to Samajbadi central committee member Bishwadeep Pandey, Dr Surendra Yadav was forcefully kidnapped from Janakpur and brought to Marriott Hotel in Kathmandu at the direct order of PM Oli with the sole purpose of splitting Samajbadi.

“A team of lawmakers of Samajbadi party including Renu Yadav and Istiyak Rai were also kept in the hotel (room 701-715) and were either threatened or enticed,” wrote Pandey on his twitter handle.

Sensing the possible split, the Samajbadi and RJPN leaders held a joint meeting and hurriedly announced merger at midnight.

Following which, the seven Samajbadi lawmakers at the leadership of Renu Yadav announced that they would form a new party.

According to sources Renu, who has long been dissatisfied with Upendra Yadav, was offered the position of deputy prime minister and at least two ministerial positions other two lawmakers.