Kathmandu, October 6

The Federal Socialist Forum-Nepal and Rastriya Janata Party-Nepal today agreed to field common candidates in the upcoming provincial and parliamentary elections.

“The two parties will cooperate, collaborate and jointly take part in the process of forming fronts or forging electoral alliance,” read a joint statement of the parties.

FSF-N Co-chair Rajendra Shrestha said the parties would jointly negotiate with the Nepali Congress and other parties while forging electoral alliance. “The understanding we have reached with the RJP-N is not an electoral alliance. It is yet to be forged,” Shrestha said, adding that the parties had decided to field common candidates and forge electoral alliance with other parties in consensus.

RJP-N leader Manish Kumar Suman, termed the agreement a kind of electoral alliance. “Now if we have to forge alliance with other parties including the Nepali Congress, we will seek their pledge to support our agenda including the demand for amending the constitution and ensuring the rights of marginalised communities,” Suman said, adding that the parties would field common candidates in the FPTP constituencies. He, however, said the two parties would submit the names of their PR candidates separately.

“We cannot contest election with one election symbol due to technical reasons, but if our collaboration succeeds, we will seek to form a unified party after elections,” he said.

Suman said votes garnered by the two parties in the third phase of local polls, candidates’ profile and organisational strength of the two parties would be bases for fielding candidates for provincial and parliamentary polls.