BIRGUNJ: Two factions of the Madhesi Janaadhikar Forum (MJF) clashed at the party’s central committee venue here on Wednesday afternoon.

The meeting was called by the faction led by party chairman Upendra Yadav. Three Constituent Assembly (CA) members of the dissident group — Karima Begam, Durga Devi Mahato and Kalawati Devi Paswan — were injured in the scuffle. Paswan and Mahato were critically hurt in the incident.

Trouble broke out after the activists, owing allegiance to the rival camp and led by

CA member Begam, reached the venue of the meeting, shouting slogans against chairman Yadav while the meeting was in progress.

Yadav’s faction chased away the rivals and also vandalised two of their motorbikes.

It seemed that the Yadav’s supporters were anticipating trouble. When the leaders of

the rival faction arrived at the venue, they tried to chase them away, hitting them with bamboo sticks. The meeting was held up for a while due to these unruly scenes.

Begam accused the police of being reduced to a casual bystander when they were being roughed up. But to be fair, the police could do little as they were vastly outnumbered by

Yadav’s supporters.

Normalcy was restored only after the additional security personnel were deployed by the District Police Office, Parsa. A central committee member, who is close to Yadav’s camp, said that the meeting discussed about the party’s future strategy on the One Madhes, One Pradesh issue. The MJF, the fourth largest party in the Constituent Assembly, plans to launch street protests to highlight their cause.

But, the party stands divided between its two factions due to serious differences of opinion among senior leaders about supporting the UML-led coalition, headed by Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal.

The matter came to a head after Yadav took the harsh decision of expelling parliamentary party leader Bijay Kumar Gachhadar and six others for alleged anti-party activities.

Yadav’s faction claimed that of the 35 central working committee members, 29 attended Wednesday's meeting.

The meeting went on till late Wednesday evening.

Gachhadar’s camp claims legitimacy

Kathmandu: The breakaway faction of the MJF held a separate central committee meeting in Lalitpur on Wednesday.

A task force, led by Deputy Prime Minister Bijaya Kumar Gachhadar, has been formed to hold talks with the UML leaders to discuss the contentious issue of the allocation of ministerial portfolios. Sarat Singh Bhandari, Jitendra Dev, Upendra Jha and Rameshwor Raya Yadav are the other members in the task force. Gachhadar wants six berths for his party. "We’re the legitimate group since the majority of the lawmakers and cadres are with us,” he claimed amid MJF chairman Upendra Yadav’s call for their disqualification. — HNS