Presidium Coordinator of Rastriya Janata Party Nepal (RJP) has called reports about the party joining the government rumors and pointed that it will not jump to join the government like Socialist Party Nepal.
RJP has forged electoral alliance with the ruling CPN for the upcoming National Assembly election. Mahato said the party can help the government if that were to become positive but ruled out joining the government anytime soon.
"They may have presumed that we will join the government soon as we have allied with CPN for National Assembly election. But these are just rumors," he quipped. "Do not link the electoral alliance with ruling coalition. We cannot even think about abandoning our agenda to join the government. We will not hurry to join the government like Upendra Yadav did," he added taking a swipe at the Socialist Party chair.
He stressed that RJP will not join the government merely on the basis of assurances to fulfill their demands. He conceded that the electoral alliance may have created groundwork for discussion with the government but revealed that it has yet to discuss its demands including Constitution amendment, withdrawal of cases filed against its cadres during Madhes movement and release of Resham Chaudhary who lost the position of federal lawmaker after getting a life sentence for Kailali incident.
Mahato clarified that Socialist Party has not quit the government due to RJP's demand for party unification. "We have been telling Socialist Party to quit the government since we initiated discussion for unification nine months ago," he pointed to clarify that Yadav quit the government now due to his own reason. "We are continuing dialogue for nine months. Many issues have been resolved while some remain unresolved. We will go for unification as soon as we agree," he revealed.
He stated that unification has been delayed due to Socialist Party's reluctance to agree the terms. "Upendra Yadav is now free (after resigning as minister). He may think seriously about unification."
