Kathmandu, October 26

The Election Commission today decided to recognise the ruling party’s name as Nepal Communist Party (N C P), stating that the name was different from the Rishi Ram Kattel-led Nepal Communist Party.

Kattel had lodged a complaint against the ruling Nepal Communist Party (N C P), saying his party statute stated that the party would be known in brief as N. C. P., and since the Nepal Communist Party (N C P) had mimicked the same name, it would be wrong on the part of the EC to allow the latter to have that name.

On the other hand, Nepal Communist Party (N C P) had argued that its abbreviated form was within brackets and there was space between the alphabets. This made it different from the Kattel-led Nepal Communist Party’s abbreviated name as there were dots between the three alphabets.

In a statement, the EC said it decided to reject Kattel’s plea because the names of the two parties were different.

The EC also said its decision to register the Nepal Communist Party (N C P) — formed after the merger between the already existing CPN-Maoist Centre and CPN-Unified Marxist Leninist — was consistent with the Political Party Registration Act, and that no further decision needed to be taken.

The EC had conducted a hearing on Thursday to hear the arguments of both parties — Kattel-led Nepal Communist Party and KP Sharma Oli and Pushpa Kamal Dahal-led Nepal Communist Party (N C P).