The Election Commission has scrapped the Nepal Communist Party (NCP) as per the Supreme Court’s Sunday order, which revived the constituent parties–the CPN-UML and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre)–and given them the option of approaching it within 15 days, with a new name, if they wish to merge again.

The Nepal Communist Party (NCP) was registered in the name of KP Sharma Oli and Pushpa Kamal Dahal in June 2018 after the merger of the UML and the Maoist Centre in May that year.

The Supreme Court had on Sunday passed a verdict on the almost three-year-old case filed by Rishiram Kattel who claimed that the Election Commission had wrongly awarded the Nepal Communist Party (NCP) name to Oli and Dahal because Nepal Communist Party was already registered under his name.

“The commission has decided to notify CPN-UML and CPN (Maoist Centre) to be present at the commission with application, proposed new name and symbol and the decision of their central committees within 15 days without violating the provisions of Political Parties Act-2017 and related regulations, if they want to merge,” a press statement of the commission issued Tuesday reads.

The commission’s failure to ask them to come up with a name other than Nepal Communist Party (NCP) three years ago, resulted in the merged party being invalidated by the court verdict.

As per the court verdict, the commission on Tuesday also decided to scrap Nepal Communist Party (NCP) and decided to notify the chairs of the UML and the Maoist Centre that they exist as separate political parties.

The same notification will be sent to the Secretariat of the federal Parliament, provincial assemblies and district election offices, according to the commission’s decision.

Oli and Dahal had got their party registered as Nepal Communist Party (NCP) on June 6, 2018 after the merger of the two separate parties. But the unified party had plunged into a deep crisis with one faction led by Oli and another by Dahal and Madhav Kumar Nepal and was on the verge of the split before the court verdict.

The commission, which had been delaying its decision on the legitimacy dispute on the now scrapped Nepal Communist Party (NCP), has been relieved of making the decision after the Supreme Court verdict.

After the unification of the party three years ago, Gopal Kirati, former Maoist leader, had registered a new party named CPN (Maoist Centre) and former UML cadre Sandhya Tiwari had registered a new party as CPN (UML).

The commission on Tuesday decided to scrap the registration of the two parties led by Tiwari and Kirati arguing two different parties could not exist under the same name as per section 6 (1E) of the Political Parties Act-2017 and rule 9 of the regulation to the Act following the Sunday’s Supreme Court verdict.

The commision said it decided to ask Kirati to come up with a new name and election symbol to register the new party while deciding to ask Tiwari to come up with a new name within 15 days.

After controversially giving the same name to the party led by Oli and Dahal as that led by Rishi Kattel, three years ago the election body had then published a notice about the registration of the Nepal Communist Party (NCP) in Nepal Gazette.

The commission on Tuesday decided to scrap that notice and publish a new notice in the Nepal Gazette saying that the UML and the Maoist Centre remain separate political parties.