The division surfaced during its first meeting since the announcement of the fresh elections for the Constituent Assembly on Wednesday. The meeting was convened by the UDMF to take stock of the political situation and chart out its strategies.[break]
According to leaders who participated in the meeting, Chairman of Tarai Madhes Democratic Party-Nepal (TMDP-N) Mahanedra Yadav was in favor of cooperating with the Maoists while leaders of four other parties were against making a communist party an election ally.
According to sources, Yadav, who is also a caretaker minister, said the Madhesi alliance should forge alliance with the UCPN (Maoist) as both forces shared common views on Madhesi causes.
But reacting to Yadav´s proposal, Joint-General Secretary of TMDP Jitendra Sonal ruled out the possibility of alliance with the Maoists. "How can we forge an alliance with the UCPN (Maoist) as we have different ideologies?" a leader quoted Sonal as saying in the meeting.
He also argued that it was not appropriate to cooperate with the UCPN (Maoist) as people with anti-Maoist sentiment had also voted for the Madhes-based political parties.
When the proposal to forge alliance with the Maoist party was outright rejected, General Secretary of Madhesi People´s Rights Forum-Democratic (MPRF-D) Jitendra Dev maintained that the Madhes-based parties should go for new CA election by forming a single Madhesi party.
Responding to Dev´s statement, General Secretary of MPRF-Republican Atmaram Sah questioned the basis of forming a single Madhesi party. "Before such talk, we should analyze why the Madhesi parties split in such a way," another Madhesi leader quoted Sah as saying.
However, the Madhesi leaders unanimously decided to go for fresh election stating that there was no alternative to it. "We concluded that only the CA can promulgate a new constitution," said Sonal, adding, "We consider the new election for the CA as the legacy of the dissolved CA."
He stated that the meeting decided to work together with ´true pro-federalist forces´ in the coming days. "We also decided to work with the pro-federalist forces -- Madhesi, Muslim, indigenous and other marginalized communities," Sonal added.
Madhesi leaders claimed that despite their continuous efforts till the last hour, they could not save the CA as some political parties including Nepali Congress and CPN-UML stuck with anti-identity-based federal stance.
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