Kathmandu, December 23
The Election Commission has said it will soon make a decision about which faction of the ruling Nepal Communist Party is legitimate.
The commission’s spokesperson Raj Kumar Shrestha says the constitutional body will look into applications and documents submitted by both sides, and check them against the party’s statute and existing laws on political parties before making a decision.
“If we cannot move forward this, the work related to registering political parties can be obstructed for the elections announced. Therefore, it will be soon,” he says.
The spokesperson’s remark comes after the camp led by Pushpa Kamal Dahal and Madhav Kumar Nepal submitted signatures of 287 of 447 central committee members of the unified party, claiming legitimacy, on Wednesday.
Earlier on Tuesday, the side led by Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli had also informed the commission that it expanded the central committee to 1,199 factions.
After Prime Minister Oli’s decision to dissolve the House of Representatives, the party formed after the merger between the then CPN-UML and the CPN-Maoist Centre led by Oli and Dahal respectively has been formally divided with the factions holding separate central committee and parliamentary party meetings. Both of them have been claiming they are legitimate NCP.
