KATHMANDU, Feb 1: The Rastriya Prajatantra Party (Prajatantrik) and Ekikrit Rastriya Prajatantra Party (Rastrawadi) on Friday merged to form a new party named Rastriya Prajatantra Party (Samyukta).
RPP (Prajatantrik) Chairman Pashupati Shumsher Rana and ERPP (Rastrawadi) Chairman Prakash Chanda Lohani announced their parties’ unification amid a function in Kathmandu.
Rana and Lohani to merge parties to form RPP (Samyukta)
Leaders duo Rana and Lohani announced that commitment to the Constitution and continuous struggle to garner the support of all political forces for a monarchical democracy would be the party’s guiding principle.
The new party will be jointly led by two chairmen -- Rana and Lohani.
Expressing dissatisfaction over the party unification process Deepak Bohara and Keshar Bahadur Bista, who were previously with the Rana’s RPP (P), have opposed the unification process.
Before announcing their unification, both the leaders signed a 10-point strategy paper. The two leaders claimed that their new party has now emerged as a mainstream political party.
Both the parties had no presence in the federal parliament whereas they have three seats in provincial assemblies—two in Province 3 and 1 in Province 1.
Disagreeing with Rana’s decision to merge the party with Kamal Thapa’s Rastriya Prajatantra Party Nepal in 2016, Lohani had formed his own party. Ahead of the 2017 federal and provincial assembly elections, Rana had quit Thapa’s party to launch his own party.
