Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal held a meeting with CPN (Unified Socialist) Chairman Madhav Kumar Nepal on Wednesday.

According to Prime Minister Dahal’s Chief Personal Secretary Ramesh Malla, during the meeting the prime minister sought the support of the Unified Socialist for the upcoming vote of confidence. The party has 10 members in the 275-member House of Representatives.

Prime Minister Dahal will go for a floor test on January 10, a day after the new lower house is scheduled to convene its first meeting.

Earlier, the Unified Socialist, which had decided to unify the party with Dahal’s CPN (Maoist Centre) after the elections, had remained undecided on whether to join the Dahal-led ruling coalition.

But Dahal had been insisting that the party come on board.

Jagannath Khatiwada, the spokesperson for the Unified Socialist, had earlier said that a meeting of the party secretariat will decide whether to support the government or not.

Dahal, who became prime minister on December 25 with the backing of the CPN-UML, Rastriya Swatantra Party, Rastriya Prajantra Party, Janata Samajabadi Party, Janamat Party, Nagarik Unmukti Party and a few independent lawmakers, has the backing of 169 lawmakers—31 more than required to form the government.