Unfortunately for a democratic country like Nepal, intra-party feuds are staying put in its polity. The recurring wranglings, often over trivial issues, have led to uncalled for splits in the parties. For instance, even a veteran party like the Nepali Congress (NC) spilt after Sher B Deuba was expelled on May 26, 2002. Likewise, the CPN (ML) was created after a dissident faction in the CPN (UML) broke away in 1996. After October 2002, the Nepal Sadbhawana Party (Anandidevi) came into being when Badri Prasad Mandal, the NSP president, joined the Chand government formed in the wake of Deuba’s sacking.

And now it’s Janamorcha Nepal’s turn. The party, formed by merging the pro-CPN (Unity Centre) and the pro-CPN (Mashal) on July 4, 2002, went separate ways on Saturday after the CPN-Mashal held a national convention to reorganise the party in Butwal and appointed Chitra Bahadur KC as its leader. According to KC, the division was inevitable since the Janamorcha leadership had converted the party into “an associate party of the CPN (Maoist).” The split is truly unfortunate and should have been avoided given the grave political situation presently facing the country. There seems to be no fundamental disagreements among the members and no strong ideological reason for the break-ups. Instead of taking rash and self-centrist positions, the members should have concentrated lot more on strengthening and uniting the parties with a long-term vision. Then only the concept of a viable and competitive multiparty system that every Nepali wants can flourish to make a difference the recent Jana Andolan was all about.