KATHMANDU, March 9: Chairman of the Janata Samajbadi Party (JSP), Mahantha Thakur has formed a task force to hold talks with the recently-revived Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist) regarding the formation of a coalition government of the two parties in the changed context.

Thakur on Monday constituted a two-member task force comprising Laxman Lal Karna and Sarbendra Nath Shukla to hold talks with the CPN (UML), which is currently leading the government.

The ruling party, however, badly needs to garner the support from any of the opposition parties --- Nepali Congress (NC), Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Center) or the JSP — to win the vote of confidence as it holds only 120 seats in the 275-member House of Representatives (HoR). A majority of votes are required to win the vote of confidence. The JSP holds 34 seats in the lower house of parliament which would be enough for Oli to form a coalition government.

Thakur met Prime Minister and Chairman of CPN (UML), KP Oli, on Sunday after the Supreme Court (SC) scrapped the ruling Nepal Communist Party (NCP). The NCP was led by PM Oli and Pushpa Kamal Dahal. The SC, however, ruled NCP belonged to Rishi Kattel who had filed a writ petition claiming that the name of the ruling party clashed with that of his party.

Thakur was learnt to have formed the task force as per the agreement reached between Oli and him.

One of the top leaders of the party, however, said that Thakur took the decision without holding any discussions in the party. The parliamentarians raised questions on the issue in the parliamentary party’s meeting on Tuesday.

 
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