Janata Samajbadi Party (JSP) Nepal President Upendra Yadav filed a writ petition at the Supreme Court on Sunday demanding that Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal’s vote of confidence motion be stopped.

The main opposition Nepali Congress permitting, Dahal is set to seek a floor test on Monday for the fourth time since becoming prime minister on December 25, 2022.

Govinda Prasad Ghimire, the Supreme Court’s information officer, said JSP-Nepal chair Yadav filed a petition against the trust motion in Parliament.

“In his petition, Yadav claims that holding a vote of confidence in Parliament will not be valid at a time when the dispute between his party and the newly formed Janata Samajbadi Party has not been resolved,” Ghimire told the Post.

Yadav, in his petition, also claimed that the seven lawmakers who defected to the Rai-led JSP are ineligible to vote in Parliament, arguing that they are partyless. The court has scheduled a hearing on the petition for Monday.

Yadav also submitted an application to Speaker Devraj Ghimire on Sunday urging him not to include the seven lawmakers in the process to conduct the vote of confidence.

Earlier, the JSP-Nepal moved the Supreme Court against the Election Commission’s decision to register the splinter group. Hearing the petition, the top court on May 15 ordered that the new party registration process be put on hold. A hearing on whether to issue an interim order will be decided in the hearing scheduled for Tuesday.

The Election Commission registered the Ashok Rai-led group as Janata Samajbadi Party on May 6. On May 5, Rai, along with six other lawmakers and 30 central committee members of the party, quit the JSP-Nepal to form the new party.

Officials at the election body said that the Rai-led party was recognised in accordance with the Political Parties Act 2017 and registered according to

Section 33 of the Act and Rule 5 of the Regulations on Political Parties 2017. However, an ordinance had nullified the Act three years ago.

“The party was recognised based on the regulations related to the Political Parties Act, a regulation that has already been withdrawn. Thus the party lawmakers cannot give the vote of confidence in Parliament,” Tejman Shrestha, assistant professor of Nepal Law Campus, told the Post. “As the Supreme Court has also ordered to maintain the status quo in the party, lawmakers of the new party will be obliged to follow the whip of the mother party should they vote in Parliament.”

However, former attorney general Mukti Pradhan said the court’s order to maintain the status quo in the party’s division does not necessarily mean the lawmakers should follow the whip issued by the Yadav-led party.

“The court has not questioned the legitimacy of the lawmakers,” Pradhan told the Post. “Lawmakers of the splinter faction have a right to vote for the prime minister if they want.”

JSP-Nepal, led by Yadav, withdrew its support to the Dahal government on May 13, accusing the major coalition partner of engineering the party’s split. Before pulling the plug on the government, party chief Yadav was the deputy prime minister and minister for health and population.

Prime Minister Dahal decided to seek a vote of confidence in the House after the JSP-Nepal withdrew its support. Without the splinter faction, the JSP-Nepal commands five lawmakers in the House of Representatives.

Prime Minister Dahal, chair of the CPN (Maoist Centre), on March 4 broke the year-long alliance with the Nepali Congress and joined hands with the CPN-UML. He also brought the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), the Janata Samajbadi Party Nepal (JSP-Nepal), and the CPN (Unified Socialist) Party on board. Dahal earlier tested the floor on March 13, and got 157 votes in his favour.

However, legal experts have differing interpretations of the prime minister’s decision to seek a trust vote. “When a prime minister commands the majority in Parliament even after a coalition partner withdraws support, it is not necessary to seek a vote of confidence,” former attorney general Raman Shrestha, who is close to the Maoist Centre, told the Post.

But assistant professor Tejman Shrestha disagrees. “The constitution has a clear provision that the prime minister must seek a vote of confidence when a coalition partner withdraws its support,” he told the Post.

Article 100 (2) of the constitution states that “if the political party which the prime minister represents is divided or a political party in coalition government withdraws its support, the prime minister shall table a motion in the House of Representatives for a vote of confidence within 30 days.”

The Supreme Court's verdict regarding the split in the JSP-Nepal may turn out to be in favour of the government or against it. Therefore, the prime minister is seeking a vote of confidence before the verdict, says Krishna Pokharel, a professor of political science.

“If the prime minister wins the vote of trust on Monday, he will get another 30 days for political manoeuvring even if he needs to win a vote of confidence yet again,” Pokharel told the Post.

But political analyst Jhalak Subedi doesn’t buy the argument. “If the prime minister loses support in Parliament, he will still have 30 days to show his majority,” Subedi told the Post. “So the ruling coalition’s possible concern is not only a Supreme Court verdict on the JSP-Nepal split.”

Subedi said the ruling coalition may be looking to present the budget through an ordinance as the main opposition has been obstructing the parliamentary proceedings.

“A prime minister who has just secured the vote of trust from Parliament will have more political capital to bring the budget through an ordinance,” Subedi added. “This might also be the reason for his haste.”

Manish Kumar Suman, the JSP-Nepal spokesperson, said his party will vote against the prime minister. “Our party will not vote for a leader who engineered our party’s split,” he told the Post.

Pradeep Yadav, a leader of the splinter faction and newly appointed minister for health and population in the Dahal Cabinet, said that the seven lawmakers of the new outfit will vote for the prime minister on Monday.

“Upendra Yadav has challenged our legitimacy as lawmakers. We will also challenge him in court on Monday morning, but his challenge will not prevent us from voting for the prime minister.”

Political analyst Pokharel also interpreted the prime minister’s decision to go for the floor test again as a strategic move.

“It would be difficult for the Congress, the party that claims to be the champion of parliamentary practice in Nepal, to obstruct Parliament when the prime minister wants a floor test,” Pokharel said.

The Congress on May 14 had lifted its obstruction of Parliament for a day to allow President Ramchandra Paudel to present the government’s policies and programmes.