Baburam Bhattarai-led Nepal Samajwadi Party (NSP) has written to the Federal Parliament Secretariat to recognize the party as a separate entity dissociating it from ruling CPN (Maoist Center).
The party, that had contested the last general election with election symbol of Maoist Center, had written on February 11 urging the Federal Parliament Secretariat to maintain separate record of its lawmakers.
Another NSP chairman Mahindra Raya Yadav, who had won with Maoist election symbol, and Umrawati Devi, elected through the proportional representation (PR) electoral system, are House of Representatives members from NSP.
The party has also sent details of its provincial assembly members from Bagmati—Ganga Narayan Shrestha elected from Sindhuli-2(B) and Phanindra Devkota from Gorkha-2(B)—in the letter.
The Election Commission had mentioned NSP in remarks to describe Devi, who was elected through PR system from Maoist Center, while sending details about HoR members.
Bhattarai had also met Speaker Dev Raj Ghimire a few days back demanding separate record of the party’s lawmakers. “He had come with a few advocates. But Speaker Ghimire told him that the Bhattarai-led party could not be given separate status as per the laws,” a source close to Speaker Ghimire told Setopati.
Maoist Center Chairman Dahal and General Secretary Dev Gurung had written to another NSP chairman Mahindra Raya Yadav for unification in September, 2023. The Bhattarai faction knew about the letter only from Yadav’s Facebook page.
Bhattarai, who quit parliamentary politics leaving his constituency in Gorkha-2 to Dahal, had protested against that accusing Dahal of trying to play in his party.
He has also slammed Dahal after he broke the coalition with Nepali Congress to form a new one with CPN-UML on Monday.
