Kathmandu, June 15

The Upendra Yadav-Baburam Bhattarai faction of the Janata Samajbadi Party-Nepal today issued a press release condemning the Election Commission's refusal to recognise the punitive actions it took against the Mahantha Thakur-Rajendra Mahato faction leaders.

Yadav had expelled Thakur from the party as well as Rajendra Mahato, Laxman Lal Karna and Sarvendranath Shukla, accusing them of indulging in anti-party activities.

The feud between the two factions intensified after the Thakur-Mahato faction supported Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli and later joined the government.

The Yadav-Bhattarai faction, which called Prime Minister Oli's move dissolving the House of Representatives, arbitrary, autocratic and regressive, joined the five-party alliance and supported Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba's bid for prime ministership.

The Yadav-Bhattarai faction of JSP-N accused the EC of not acting impartially and neutrally and acting with prejudice against it. The EC rejected democratic values, norms, rules and system by rejecting the decisions of majority of leaders of our party, the Yadav-Bhattarai faction said in its press release.

The Yadav-Bhattarai faction further said that the EC had deviated from its constitutional and legal duty by refusing to validate the punitive actions taken against rival faction leaders. It said the EC's decisions appeared to have given validity to the rival faction leaders' activities that went against the provisions of Political Party Act, political party rules, the party's interim statute and code of conduct. The EC's refusal to recognise the punitive actions taken against rival faction leaders raised the question of its impartiality and neutrality and hence its decisions are not acceptable, the Yadav-Bhattarai faction said in its press release.

The faction will seek political and legal remedies against the EC's decisions.

The Yadav-Bhattarai faction said that it had submitted all the documents sought by the polls panel and had urged it to update the party's record in the EC, especially the removal of some leaders from the party's post as per Section 51 of the Political Party Act.

While the Yadav faction has majority in the 51-member Executive Committee, the Thakur-Mahato faction had the support of majority members in the parliamentary party before the House of Representatives was dissolved.

A version of this article appears in the print on June 16, 2021, of The Himalayan Times.