Kathmandu: The Janata Samajbadi Party-Nepal (JSP-N), one of the coalition partners in Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda-led government, has split after a majority of its lawmakers and over two dozen central committee members applied for a new party at the Election Commission.
A faction of the JSP-N led by the party’s federal council chair Ashok Rai registered the application for a new party while the party’s chair Deputy Prime Minister Upendra Yadav, who is also minister for health and population, is on a trip abroad.
Pradip Yadav, a lawmaker of the JSP-N, said that 29 central committee members and seven lawmakers have jointly applied to form a new party. The Election Commission this week officially recognized the Ashok Rai-led Janata Samajbadi Party (JSP) as a new political party.
Party insiders said that Rai registered the new party at the advice of Prime Minister Prachanda to counter Yadav, whose relations with the ruling alliance have soured lately. The split in the JSP-N will not affect the government’s stability at the moment, said a central member of CPN-Maoist Centre.
