Kathmandu, August 7

Chairman of the newly formed Rastriya Prajatantra Party-Democratic Pashupati Shumsher JB Rana today said he decided to form a new party as RPP Chair Kamal Thapa ran party affairs arbitrarily.

Rana, who yesterday registered a new party at the Election Commission, said that the RPP-D was formed as per the feelings and demands of party workers. Rana loyalists said 72 Central Committee members, including 19 RPP lawmakers had sided with Rana to form a new party.

Addressing a press meet here in Kathmandu today, Rana said Thapa took decisions on his own going against the spirit of unification and feelings of party workers. He said the RPP suffered serious setback in local level elections, due to Thapa’s arbitrary and opportunistic decisions.

“We had expected our party to emerge as the third largest force,  but it ranked sixth in the local polls  due to the self-centred decision of the leadership,” said Rana, adding, “The RPP leadership has lost people’s faith.” He said the party could not be mobilise its rank and file and party candidates did not get any help from the party.

“Candidates were forced to contest elections, as if they were independent contestants,” he said, adding that the party would be completely destroyed if they remained under Thapa’s leadership.

He said he had handed over the party leadership easily at the time of unification hoping that the party would be strengthened and could play an important role in bringing stability in the country by unifying nationalistic and democratic forces.

“But our sincerity was taken as weakness and Thapa  tried to run the party in arbitrarily as if he was the victor,” added Rana. He further alleged that Thapa gave priority to his personal interest and promoted nepotism in the party.

Rana further said that when the RPP unified with the RPP-N, the two parties agreed to keep the plough as the authorised election symbol of the unified party, but Thapa ignored the agreement after unification. He alleged that Thapa presented the party’s stance on Madhes in a way that suited his personal interests.

Rana claimed that the newly formed RPP-D was mainstream and asked all nationalist democratic forces to unite under the party’s leadership. Rana said action against leaders, who defected from the RPP was meaningless, as the new party had submitted signatures of over 40 per cent central working committee members to the EC.

The Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) and Rastriya Prajatantra Party-Nepal (RPP-N) had unified on November 21 last year.

Meanwhile, the Rastriya Prajatantra Party today expelled 17 leaders, including six lawmakers from the party’s membership.

According to RPP Co-chairperson Mohan Shrestha, the party has expelled Deepak Bohara, Sunil Thapa, Resham Lama, Biraj Bistha, Rajya Laxmi Shrestha, Babina Lawati and other 11 central working committee members from the party’s membership.