Nepal’s Communist party splits formally

According to the statute governing defections in Nepal, a split has to be effected by at least 40 per cent of MPs. Officials said 46 of the UML’s 89 deputies had given notice that they were switching. "They will now have a separate level (status)," parliamentary spokesman Shashi Mainali said. The break-up left the ruling Nepali Congress with 87 seats as the largest party in the 205-member House of Representatives. The Himalayan kingdom has gone through a series of government changes since the last general election produced a parliament with no stablemajority.

Failing to win favour at the party’s sixth National Congress last January-end, former deputy prime minister Bandev Gautam had been active since then in mustering the required numbers to effect the formal split. Earlier in the day, the CPN(UML) central committee expelled Gautam and nine other MPs from the party for indulging in "anti-party activities". Informing the parliament secretariat of this action, CPN (UML) president and leader of its parliamentary group Manmohan Adhikary desired that the Membership of Parliament of the 10 be cancelled.

According to the rules of procedure of the Pratinidhi Sabha, the membership of Parliament of a Legislator stands automatically cancelled if he, or she, is expelled from the party on whose ticket he, or she, was elected to the house.

Expelled alongwith Gautam were former ministers Chandra Prakash Mainali, Radha Krishna Mainali, Devi Prasad Ojha and Sahana Pradhan as well as Hiranya Lal Shreshtha and Ghanashyam Bhusal — all Pratinidhi Sabha members. Othersexpelled from the CPN(UML) were Rashtriya Sabha members are Sitanandan Raya, Keshav Lal Shreshtha and Mohan Chandra Adhikary.

The CPN (UML) was formed in 1990, shortly after the restoration of multiparty parliamentary democracy in Nepal, with the coming together of Manmohan Adhikary’s CPN (Marxist) and the CPN (Marxist-Leninist).

Establishing itself as the mainstream Communist movement in Nepal, the CPN (UML) later absorbed several smaller Left splinter groups and emerged after the 1994 midterm parliamentary polls as the single largest party in Parliament.