Kathmandu: A day after Nepal’s Supreme Court invalidated the decision of the 2018 party merger between the Nepal Communist Party-UML and Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre), the ruling Nepal Communist Party (NCP) has fallen apart politically and technically.
The NCP was formed after the merger between UML and Maoist Center.
The Supreme Court affected the split along the CPN-UML and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre) and took them to the pre-unification stage which will ultimately make Prime Minister Oli a bit stronger because he was elected to the post from CPN-UML.
But the party split came as a setback to Pushpa Kamal Dahal aka Prachanda who used to be the Chairman of CPN-Maoist Center.
The court also invalidated the NCP that was registered under Oli and Prachanda in June 2018.
With the Supreme Court’s ruling, top UML leaders who used to side with Prachanda against Oli started returning to the mother party.
Former Prime Ministers Madhav Kumar Nepal, Jhalanath Khanal among other top leaders and parliamentarians started returning to the UML.
As per the constitutional provision, lawmakers cannot change the political party on an individual basis. If they do so, they will lose the parliamentary seats.
With the new equation, Prachanda will now have 53 of the Maoist lawmakers and the Nepal side, along with around 43 lawmakers, would return to the Oli-led UML.
These 43 lawmakers will join the mother party led by Oli.
With the court decision, Dahal’s Maoist Centre is now reduced to the third party in Parliament.
