Internal wranglings have put the electoral agendas of Rastriya Janata Party-Nepal and Sanghiya Samajbadi Party-Nepal on the back burner.

Though these parties entered the federal parliament, receiving majority of the seats from the southern plains, they are preoccupied with internal disputes rather than the development issues they promised voters during election campaigns.

The SSF-N, led by Deputy Prime Minister and Health Minister Upendra Yadav, has postponed its Central Work Execution Committee meeting after the party noted serious problems in Provinces 1, 2 and 3. The party has called its most powerful central committee meeting for December 8 and 9 to sort out all issues.

Serious differences continue to simmer in the provincial committees of Provinces 1 and 2.

In Province 1, where General Secretary Ranadhoj Kandangwa and Secretary Parshuram Basnet hold the posts of in-charge and joint-in-charge respectively, as many as 26 members of the 51-strong provincial committee have protested against the process of selecting the office-bearers of the provincial committee. To resolve this issue, the SSF-N recently formed a panel of three vice-chairs representing the province—Rakam Chemjong, Hemraj Rai and Yubaraj Karki.

In Province 2, all eight district in-charges have demanded the central leadership to replace Renu Yadav as the provincial in-charge, citing that she is difficult to work with and she has a predilection of defying the party’s decisions. The district in-charges were referring to Yadav issuing a press statement, urging the provincial committee to observe the Constitution Day as a black day.

After some SSF-N office-bearers including Secretary Prakash Adhikary criticised Yadav for going against the party’s decision, she had tendered her resignation. But leaders claimed that Yadav has since withdrawn her resignation after Adhikary agreed to resolve the dispute. Nonetheless, the central committee meeting is said to discuss all the allegations against her.

SSF-N Vice-chairman Hemraj Rai said the situation became worse after Yadav objected to the proposed plan to resolve the issue of Province 2.

According to one of the three vice-chairmen, the party is also facing problem in forming the Province 3 committee due to the conflict in its leadership.

After failing to resolve the disputes in the provincial committees, the 15-member top body of the party has called the meeting of the party’s central committee.

The RJP-N is also mired in an internal dispute after Rajendra Mahato was recently elected the party’s presidium co-ordinator. The next presidium meeting has been postponed indefinitely as the leaders close to Mahantha Thakur and Anil Jha have voiced their reservations over Mahato’s election.

Mahato was elected the party’s presidium co-ordinator after receiving votes from four of the six presidium members, Rajendra Mahato, Rajkishor Yadav, Mahendra Raya Yadav and Sharat Singh Bhandari.

Leaders close to Thakur and Jha have said that Mahato’s election was against the party statute, because of the stipulation that says the presidium co-ordinator should be elected unanimously.

“The meeting of presidium has been postponed for an indefinite period,” said General Secretary Keshav Jha, adding that the new development in the party could seriously affect the political course.

Anil Jha has objected to the decision of changing the leadership of Mahantha Thakur, claiming that he was a respectable figure in the party.

Leaders close to Thakur say the presidium took all decisions unanimously, but blamed the co-ordinator for taking unilateral decisions.

The first meeting of the party’s presidium under Mahato has already been postponed twice.

He had convened the first meeting for Sunday and later postponed it to Monday, but that too could not happen due to the absence of Rajkishor Yadav.