Janata Samajwadi Party (JSP) Chairman Upendra Yadav is set to become the parliamentary party leader after being elected to the House of Representatives (HoR) winning the recent by-election held in Bara-2.
Yadav is still busy meeting the voters in his constituency to thank them and has informed Speaker Dev Raj Ghimire that he wants to get sworn in on Tuesday.
Yadav, who had lost to Janamat Party Chairman CK Raut in the HoR constituency of Saptari-2 in November 2022, had made his confidant Ram Sahay Prasad Yadav the parliamentary party leader ahead of Federal Council Chairman Ashok Rai. But the post is vacant since Chairman Yadav got the latter elected the vice-president of the country to contest by-election in the vacant constituency of Bara-2.
“Who else can claim to become parliamentary party leader ahead of him? He had made Ram Sahay Prasad Yadav the parliamentary party leader for his own interest,” a JSP lawmaker told Setopati. “Deputy parliamentary party leader Naval Kishore Sah is currently leading the parliamentary party after Ram Sahay Prasad Yadav became vice-president. It is almost certain that Chairman Yadav himself will become the parliamentary party leader.”
Another JSP leader stated that whether the party will join the government or not would be decided only after Yadav becomes the parliamentary party leader. “No one other than Yadav knows whether the party will join the government or not. Only he knows who he will send to the government if he does not go himself,” the leader opined. “He had promised the post of minister to many leaders at the time of by-election. It will be difficult to estimate who he will make if he makes one person minister.”
Ashok Rai is education minister representing JSP in the current government. Yadav has not sent anyone to oversee the Ministry of Forests and Environment that has been allocated to the party.
Yadav has become minister thrice until now. He had led the party in the Cabinet whenever the party joined the government except when Sher Bahadur Deuba became prime minister as per the Supreme Court order in July 2021.
