Seventeen months after its unification to form what was touted to be an alternative political force, Bibeksheel Sajha Party split on Friday.

One of the coordinators Ujwal Thapa today filed an application at the Election Commission (EC) for the registration of a new party.

Among the 37-member central committee, 16 had gone to the Election Commission to register the new party.  The new party’s name has been proposed as Bibeksheel Nepali Party.

Bibeksheel leader Pukar Bam confirmed that they have started the legal process for the registration of the new party.

“We were forced to take this step because our political image will be tarnished if we delay the separation,” he said. Thapa had long been dissatisfied with the activities of another coordinator Rabindra Mishra.

Ranju Neupane, Sadhana Rai, Subuna Basnet, Ajita Rai, Anusha Thapa, Milan Pandey, Jeevan Shrestha,Govinda Narayan Timilsena, Ramesh Paudel, Sashi Bikram Karki, Gyanendra Niraula, Pukar Bam, Biraj Bhakta Shrestha, Ashutosh Tiwari and Arjun Singh Thakuri are in Thapa’s faction.

But Bibeksheel Sajha Party Spokesperson Surya Raj Acharya, in a statement today, said the party leaders were stunned to hear that Ujjwal Thapa registered a new party at the Election Commission.

“All the province and district coordinators of the party are still active,” Acharya said in the statement read, acknowledging that there were differences within the party over modus operation and working system.

“Once in a while it has come out in the public that there were differences over nature, and objective of the party. It is unfortunate that the party—a beacon of hope for people living within and outside the country —came to this stage,” he said.

The party had summoned its central committee meeting on January 14 to address the existing differences within the party, the statement read.

“The step taken by a few leaders of the party including coordinator Thapa was not only a betrayal to the party’s clean objective of forming an alternative political force but also injustice to the youth and voters who supported the party,” said Thapa.

The statement said the party is committed to make the party eligible to take country’s leadership role by establishing it the centre of national politics.

Ujjwal Thapa-led Bibeksheel Nepali and Rabindra Mishra-led Sajha Party had announced their unification on July 26, 2017. After the unification of two parties, Mishra had said that they decided to merge the party for the formation of alternative political force.

Though Bibeksheel Sajha Party had fielded six candidates to contest the federal elections from different constituencies of Kathmandu, none of them won the polls.

Among them, Mishra, ex-BBC journalist, had faced a defeat at the hands of powerful Nepali Congress leader Prakash Man Singh from Kathmandu-1 by a slim margin of 818 votes.