KATHMANDU, AUGUST 20
The Madhav Kumar Nepal-Jhalanath Khanal faction of the CPN-UML and Mahantha Thakur-Rajendra Mahato faction of the Janata Samajbadi Party-Nepal today filed petitions at the Election Commission proposing to change the names of their parties.
The Nepal-Khanal faction has changed its party's name to CPN (Unified Socialist).
Earlier, the faction had written to the poll panel to name its party as CPN-UML-Socialist.
Meanwhile, CPN (Unified Socialist) Chair Madhav Kumar Nepal wrote on Facebook that he was compelled to open a new party as the establishment faction had closed all doors for unity. Nepal said his party would hold a national conference after completing the process of party registration and add more members to the party's central committee.
The Thakur-Mahato faction also filed a new petition proposing to change the name of its new party to the Democratic Socialist Party-Nepal. Earlier, the Thakur-Mahato faction had proposed to name the outfit Janata Samajbadi Party-Nepal (Democratic).
Leaders of both the parties decided to change the names of their parties as the Supreme Court ruling in the Rishi Ram Kattel case had stated that the name of a political party should be starkly different from any other political party.
The EC has summoned the Democratic Socialist Party-Nepal leaders on Wednesday for verification.
According to DSP-N leader Keshav Jha, the party added seven members to the executive committee making it a 31-member body apart from naming Sharat Singh Bhandari the second senior leader of the party. Rajendra Mahato is also the senior leader of the party.
The Upendra Yadav-Baburam Bhattarai faction of the JSP-N had filed a petition at the EC urging it not to allow the Thakur-Mahato faction to have JSP-N in the new party's name.
EC Spokesperson Raj Kumar Shrestha said although the poll panel had 45 days to take a call on the registration process, it was trying to complete the registration process as soon as possible.
The EC has summoned the leaders who have signed to split the UML and the JSP-N to appear before it on August 25 to verify their signatures.
A version of this article appears in the print on August 21 2021, of The Himalayan Times.
