There will be two pilots even in the party to be formed after unification of Federal Socialist Forum Nepal (FSFN) and Naya Shakti Party Nepal.
Baburam Bhattarai and Upendra Yadav will be chairmen of the new Socialist Party Nepal.
CPN formed after unification of the then CPN-UML and CPN (Maoist Center) also has two chairmen. PM and one of the two CPN chairmen KP Sharma Oli (Pushpa Kamal Dahal is the other chairman) had said that the unified CPN is big like a jet plane and needs two pilots when questions were asked about keeping two chairmen in the party.
A Naya Shakti leader told Setopati that the roles of Socialist chairmen, however, will be different from the two pilots of CPN. "Hands of one of the CPN pilots have been tied. But that will not be the case in the new Socialist Party Nepal," the leader said. "Functions, responsibilities and rights of our two pilots will be clearly defined."
Responsibilities of the two chairmen in the unified party have already been defined to ensure that there is no dispute between the chairmen after unification. Upendra Yadav, the current FSFN chairman, will be chairman of the central committee in the unified party while Baburam Bhattarai, the Naya Shakti convenor, will chair the federal council.
The current central members of both FSFN (278) and Naya Shakti (151) will be central members of even the unified party that will have eight vice chairmen, three general secretaries, three deputy general secretaries and five secretaries to go with the two chairmen.
Bhattarai will be the top-ranked leader and Yadav the second. "The topmost body is general convention and the federal council comes second and the central committee third," FSFN leader Rakam Chemjong told Setopati. "The federal council will evaluate and review the central committee decisions and provide necessary directions."
The federal council can even revoke central committee decisions if deemed necessary, according to Chemjong.
The federal council will be around 1,000 strong and include the current members of Naya Shakti's federal council and FSFN's national council. Both the parties claim that they have around 500 members at that level.
"The number of federal council members will be decided at the time of announcing unification," Naya Shakti leader Ganga Shrestha told Setopati.
Shrestha said 'improved federal socialism' will be the new party's ideology and the party will prepare its policies accordingly.
The parties have yet to decide whether to remain in the federal government after unification or not. FSFN, that has 16 House of Representatives (HoR) members, has three ministers in the Oli Cabinet while Bhattarai is the only HoR member from Naya Shakti.
The new party will submit points for Constitution amendment after unification and will quit the government if the statute is not amended.
