The legal recourse that will take a month-long time will settle the dispute over which faction is the official MPRF, the fourth largest party in the Constituent Assembly, besides legalizing the split. Both the factions have claimed of being official and have accordingly applied to the EC for a legal recognition.
On Thursday, the EC sent separate notices to both factions -- one led by MPRF Chairman Upendra Yadav and another by MPRF parliamentary party leader and Deputy Prime Minister Bijaya Gachchhadar -- to furnish their respective views on their claim of being official MPRF within 15 days, according to the EC legal department.
The dispute in the party erupted after Gachchhadar joined the current government on June 4 as deputy prime minister and subsequent expulsion of seven leaders, including Gachchhadar, by the Yadav faction. Now each faction has separate seats in the CA -- one in the government row and another in the opposition -- with their own separate parliamentary leaders and offices. But the split is yet to get a legal status.
"We are making preparations for the legal battle," said Mithilesh Kumar Singh, one of the lawyers of Yadav faction. "We will furnish our views to the EC once we receive the notice."
Similarly, the Gachchhadar faction is also in touch with lawyers like Senior Advocate Harihar Dahal and advocate Tika Ram Bhattarai, according to a leader in the Gachchhadar faction.
MPRF was registered in 1998 as an NGO, before being registered last year as a political party, in the run up to the CA election. It bagged 52 seats in the assembly. Its chief, Yadav, was associated with the CPN-UML and later and CPN- Maoist while Gachchhadar was an NC leader till March 2008. The party has a complex foundation as it is formed by democrats, technocrats, leftists and former royalists.
Once the EC gets the views from each faction, it will first try to settle the dispute through mutual understanding between the two factions, according to the Clause 26 (4) of the Election Commission Act. In this case, if one of the faction gives up its claim of being official MPRF and agrees to open a new party or register a separate party, the dispute will finish at this stage. But if they continue to stick to their guns, the EC will then begin a next step.
The rival factions will then be asked to furnish "the grounds and evidence" on nwhich they should be entitled to use the name, constitution, election symbol or flag of the party. Then the dispute will be presented before a bench of EC commissioners for a judgment. The bench is required to conduct hearings from lawyers representing both the factions. The bench will then pronounce its verdict giving official MPRF recognition to the faction that will have support of a majority of 35-member MPRF central committee.
In this case, the central committee means the one that was in existence before the expulsion of the seven leaders of the Gachchhadar faction, according to advocate Tika Ram Bhattarai, who had handled a similar case of Nepal Sadbhavana Party (Anandidevi). The EC verdict will be final.
The Gachchhadar faction has furnished support of 16 central committee members before the EC. The Yadav faction has also claimed to have the majority in the central committee.
What happens if the Gachchhadar faction which is short of two central committee members to have a majority in the central committee, is not recognized by the EC? The EC will allow the faction to register as a separate party with similar name like MPRF (Gachchhadar) or something like that the faction prefers.
But the leaders in the Gachchhadar faction said they are confident of garnering the support from majority central committee members. Accordingly, the party has strategically not selected the names of ministers in its quota to woo central committee members other than the 16 to rally behind it. But a senior leader in the Yadav faction said there is no possibility of other leaders joining the Gachchhadar camp.
kiran@myrepublica.com
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