Nepal Samajbadi Party (Naya Shakti), led by former prime minister Baburam Bhattarai, commenced its first national convention at the Nepal Academy, Kathmandu on Sunday. The convention, attended by 1,500 representatives, will elect an 11-member leadership team and a 99-member central committee.

Bhattarai, a key figure in Nepal’s Maoist insurgency, left the Maoist party in 2015, shortly after the promulgation of the new constitution from the Constituent Assembly. He founded the Naya Shakti Party in 2016, aiming to establish an alternative political force. He later merged his party, in May 2019, with then Sanghiya Samajbadi Forum led by Upendra Yadav to form Sanghiya Samajbadi Party, which eventually in 2020 merged with the Rastriya Janata Party to form the Janata Samajbadi Party. After multiple mergers and divisions, Bhattarai along with Mahindra Ray Yadav, a senior Madhesi leader, registered yet another new party Nepal Samajbadi Party in 2022.

After Mahindra Ray Yadav left the organisation, Bhattarai chose to rebrand his party as Nepal Samajbadi Party (Naya Shakti) last year. At present, the Bhattarai-led party doesn’t have even a single lawmaker in the federal parliament.

The convention, running until February 11, includes online voting for members abroad.

Party leaders claim the national convention will pave the way for restructuring Nepal’s political landscape and fostering progressive alliances.