The central committee meeting of the Upendra Yadav-led faction of the Janata Samajbadi Party kicked off in Birgunj on Wednesday. The two-day meeting was organised a day after a similar gathering of another group in the party led by Baburam Bhattarai took place in Kathmandu.

The party, which was formed about two years ago with an aim to become a promising alternative to traditional political parties, is on the brink of split as two major leaders, Baburam Bhattarai and Upendra Yadav, called separate gatherings of their supporters. The Bhattarai faction called a ‘plenum’ of the central committee in Kathmandu on Tuesday.

Addressing the function, Yadav said that the Birgunj meeting was organised as per the decision of the party’s central executive committee. He accused the Bhattarai faction of misusing the party’s banner in its gathering in Kathmandu.

“The gathering in Kathmandu is of those who don’t even have basic political culture,” Yadav said. “The gathering (in Kathmandu) is neither recognised nor will it be sanctioned by the party.”

Yadav spent most of Wednesday’s meeting criticising Bhattarai. “He (Bhattarai) collected signatures stating that it was done to call a meeting. But he did not attend the executive committee meeting,” said Yadav, claiming that Bhattarai was in a dilemma over whether to remain in the party, merge with the CPN (Maoist Centre) or form a socialist centre with Madhav Kumar Nepal.

Yadav claimed that around two-thirds of the members of the central committee attended the Birgunj gathering of the party.

The party had suffered a split in July last year after a faction led by Mahantha Thakur formed the Loktantrik Samajbadi Party.

In May 2019, the then Sanghiya Samajbadi Forum led by Yadav merged with the Bhattarai-led Naya Shakti Party Nepal, forming a new political party named Samajbadi Party Nepal. The current Janata Samajbadi Party was formed in April 2020 after the Bhattarai-Yadav-led Samajbadi Party Nepal merged with the Rastriya Janata Party.