KATHMANDU, JULY 28

The executive committee of the Janata Samajbadi Party-Nepal has decided to join the Sher Bahadur Deuba government.

JSP-N leader Dambar Khatiwada said that the party would discuss other issues of the government with constituents of the five-party alliance.

He said the party would nominate its ministers after holding discussions with other coalition partners. Khatiwada also said that party lawmaker Resham Lal Chaudhary who had stayed neutral during the support verification process at the Election Commission also joined the Upendra Yadav-Baburam Bhattarai faction of the party.

Khatiwada said that the Election Commission had given 15 days to the rival faction led by Mahantha Thakur and Rajendra Mahato to open a new party and if they wanted to remain within the JSP-N they could stay in the party but they would have to follow party discipline and rules. During support verification process at the EC, 34 members of the 51-member Executive Committee supported the Yadav-Bhattarai faction while 16 members supported the Thakur-Mahato-led faction.

Lawmaker Chaudhary who has been convicted for the Kailali carnage by lower courts had chosen to remain neutral.

Yadav said recently that the Thakur-Mahato faction could remain in the party if they apologised for their mistakes.

The Thakur-Mahato faction has, however, said that they had done nothing wrong and would not apologise.

Factional feud intensified in the JSP-N after Thakur and Mahato supported KP Sharma Oli's bid for prime ministership under Article 76 (5) of the constitution and the Yadav-Bhattarai faction supported Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba's bid for prime ministership under the same Article.

A version of this article appears in the print on July 29 2021, of The Himalayan Times.