KATHMANDU, JUNE 2
The Election Commission today wrote to both the factions of the Janata Samajbadi Party-Nepal seeking more documents from them before deciding which faction's action was valid.
Yesterday, co-chairs of the party Upendra Yadav and Mahantha Thakur expelled each other from the party for allegedly violating party discipline.
Yadav also expelled Rajendra Mahato, Laxman Lal Karna, and Sarvendranath Shukla from the party for acting against the party's interests.
Spokesperson for the EC Rajkumar Shrestha told THT that the poll panel asked the Yadav faction to submit details of the disciplinary action in the format prescribed in the Political Party Act. The EC also asked the Thakur faction to submit a copy of the details and signatures of executive committee members who had endorsed disciplinary action against Yadav.
The Yadav faction has already submitted a copy of the executive committee meeting.
In the 51-member executive committee, the Yadav faction has the support of almost 30 members.
Senior Advocate Mithilesh Kumar Singh who is also close to JSP-N Chair Yadav, said his faction which had the support of majority members of the Executive Committee decide to expel Thakur, Mahato, Karna and Shukla and the decision conformed with the party's rules and statutes.
Singh said Thakur had violated party decisions the day he issued a press release jointly with Yadav saying the party would not join the government in near future and the same day he went to the President's Office expressing support to KP Sharma Oli's government.
He said the rival faction was preparing to join the Oli government soon, and his faction would take action against those who joined the government.
Laxman Lal Karna said that disciplinary action by both sides did not follow the party statute provisions as such actions were not taken by the Disciplinary Committee and Disciplinary Commission of the party. He said he was working to get the party's demands addressed when disciplinary action was taken against him by the Yadav faction. He said his faction would join the Oli government in a few days.
Division between the two sides intensified in the aftermath of the dissolution of the House of Representatives with the Thakur-Mahato faction supporting Oli's government and the Yadav faction joining the opposition alliance.
While Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba had staked claim to form the government under Article 76 (5) with the support of CPN- MC and Yadav's faction of JSP-N, Oli also staked claim to form government with support of the Thakur-Mahato faction of the JSP-N.
A version of this article appears in the print on June 3, 2021, of The Himalayan Times.
