Chairman Kamal Thapa has claimed that the “force involved in toppling the KP Sharma Oli-led government” was responsible for foiling the merger plan between his Rastriya Prajatantra Party-Nepal and the RPP.

Talking to journalists one day after the unification plan failed, Thapa said on Tuesday that Pashupati Shum-sher Rana’s “inability to take decision on his own” had led to the fiasco.

The merger plan of the two right-wing parties was cancelled at the 11th hour on Monday after the RPP demanded that the new party’s statute should be finalised before unification. The two parties were set to announce their merger on Tuesday.

“Rana was distancing himself from the merger once he returned from India in mid-July,” said Thapa, hinting at India’s role behind the sudden cancellation of merger. Speaking in Parliament on Monday, Thapa charged that the Nepali parties were losing their capacity to take decisions on their own and were working at the behest of “unseen” forces.

The Central Working Committees of both the parties had, on July 27, endorsed the merger plan. The new party would be called simply the RPP. They had agreed to recognise Thapa as the chairman while Rana would be the second-in-command, “national chairman”.

The parties, according to senior leaders from both the forces, had agreed to wait for two weeks before taking a decision on joining the government. “In a meeting on Monday, Rana said he was compelled to send two names for appointment as ministers. I told him either to choose party merger or joining the government,” Thapa told the press meet. The RPP had voted for Pushpa Kamal Dahal while the RPP-Nepal voted against him during the prime ministerial election in Parliament on Wednesday.

RPP leaders said they would press their leadership to unite. “Our cadres across the country were euphoric with the merger decision. Our leadership has shattered their joy,” said RPP General Secretary Buddhiman Tamang, who is close to Rana. “We will build pressure on the chairman for the merger.”

Sources said that the faction led by former prime minister and RPP senior leader Lokendra Bahadur Chand was ready even to split the party for joining the RPP-Nepal.