Janata Samajbadi Party, which was formed after the merger of Samajbadi Party Nepal and Rastriya Janata Party Nepal, has been officially registered at the Election Commission.

According to Raj Kumar Shrestha, spokesperson of the Election Commission, Janata Samajbadi Party has been officially registered at the commission and that it will get a certification of party registration on Friday.

“Election Commission on Wednesday decided to register the Janata Samajbadi Party as per an application it had filed seeking party registration,” said Shrestha. “We will provide them a certificate of party registration after a notice is published in Nepal Gazette.”

On June 7, the leaders of the two parties had filed an application at the commission seeking to register Janata Samajbadi Party with Mahantha Thakur and Upendra Yadav as party chairs and Ashok Rai, Baburam Bhattarai and Rajendra Mahato as senior leaders.

The Samajbadi Party and Rashtriya Janata Party had announced their merger on April 22 midnight after Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli issued two ordinances–one related to Political Parties Act which sought to ease provisions related to party split and registration of a new party.

The ordinance, however, was withdrawn later after much criticism.

On April 23, leaders of both the parties had informed the Election Commission about their merger.

“We just received information about the registration of our party. The Election Commission has called us tomorrow to collect the certificate of party registration,” said Thakur, one of the two chairs of the newly registered party.

According to Thakur, as soon as the Election Commission informs the Federal Parliament secretariat about the registration of the Janata Samajbadi Party, a process to merge the parliamentary parties of the constituent parties.

Samajbadi Party and Rastriya Janata Samajbadi Party have 16 seats each in the House of Representatives and three seats in the National Assembly.

With 32 seats in the Lower House, the Janata Samajbadi Party will then become the third largest party after the ruling Nepal Communist Party (173 seats) andthe main opposition Nepali Congress (60 seats).