The task of sharing provincial and federal election seats among the five ruling parties is getting tougher by the day as their task force is unlikely to submit its recommendation to the top leadership anytime soon.

The task force, which has 11 members, was formed by a meeting of the ruling parties on August 5 to recommend a seat-sharing formula. The government has already declared the elections for November 20.

A meeting of the ruling alliance on Friday evening asked the task force to prepare a joint concept for seat-sharing, suggesting that there has not been much progress.

“We will soon come up with a joint concept for sharing seats,” said Gyanendra Bahadur Karki, minister for information and communication technology, who is a member of the task force from the Nepali Congress.

“We will prepare a framework on how to split the seats for both federal and provincial constituencies,” Karki added.

There are 165 seats under the first-past-the-post (FPTP) system for federal elections and 330 FPTP seats for provincial elections.

After being unable to work out a formula for sharing the seats, a meeting of the task force earlier on Monday had decided to consult the top leaders of the alliance.

The convenor of the task force, Congress leader Krishna Prasad Sitaula, said it could take them up to ten days to sort out the differences among the parties as each party wants more seats for itself.

Sitaula is also tasked with coordinating with the top alliance leaders in order to gauge the extent of compromise each party is prepared to make on seat-sharing. He has already met with Congress President and Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, CPN (Maoist Center) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal, CPN (Unified Socialist) chair Madhav Kumar Nepal, Janata Samajbadi Party chair Upendra Yadav, and Rastriya Janamorcha chief Chitra Bahadur KC.

A meeting of the task force on Monday worked out four criteria for sharing seats among the five partners and started evaluating the votes secured by each in the last two elections—the 2017 elections and this year’s local elections, according to leaders.

The four criteria are the FPTP seats won in the 2017 elections, PR seats won in the 2017 elections, performance in last May’s local elections, and priority to top leaders of the parties.

“It seems, the task force will not make recommendations until it receives a clear guidance from the top leaders since fixing the number is a complicated work,” said Sitaula.

The Nepali Congress is claiming around 100 FPTP seats for itself, the CPN (Maoist Center) wants 50, the CPN (Unified Socialist) is looking for 25 seats and the Janata Samajbadi Party is eying not less than 16 seats. The alliance plans to divide provincial assembly seats on the same ratio as federal parliament seats.

But, according to another task force member, Maoist Center and other alliance members are not willing to cede 100 seats to the Nepali Congress.

“If we have to compromise on fewer than 100 seats, then there will be a rebellion inside the Congress party as disappointed aspirants could challenge the alliance candidates,” said Gagan Thapa, general secretary of the Nepali Congress, who is also in the task force.

Alliance members should understand the problem of the Nepali Congress, he added.

Thapa also agrees that the task force is unlikely to complete its task until the top leaders themselves reach a concrete agreement on seat-sharing.

After sensing that there already are not enough seats to share among the alliance partners, the Nepali Congress has dropped the idea of inducting Mahantha Thakur’s Loktantrik Samajbadi Party into the alliance.

“If we bring the Loktantrik Samajbadi into the alliance, then there will be hardly eight seats left for us in Madhesh after allocations to the existing alliance partners and the Loktantrik Samajbadi. So the possibility of the Loktantrik Samajbadi joining the alliance has ended,” said Thapa.

“And if the Congress doesn’t get enough seats, then the UML will take advantage of our weaknesses,” said Thapa.

The Maoist Centre has been insisting on sharing seats based on the results of the 2017 elections. Out of the 165 FPTP seats, the Maoist Center had won 36; Nepali Congress 23; and the present Janata Samajbadi Party that contested the 2017 elections under the banner of the Sanghiya Samajbadi Forum had won 10 FPTP seats.

At the task force meeting, members from the Maoist Center and the Unified Socialist had proposed sharing only the 81 FPTP seats won by the UML in 2017 while leaving the seats won by member parties for themselves.

But the task force was unable to come to a conclusion owing to persistent differences among its members.

“If we distribute the seats as per the demands of the member parties then we need 265 FPTP seats. If all the parties stick to their guns, then there will not be any agreement,” said Sitaula.

Meanwhile, a new seat-sharing formula was making rounds among top leaders on Friday, according to a Maoist Centre leader. Per this formula, the Congress would get 85 seats and the remaining 80 would be divided among the remaining four members plus Baburam Bhattarai and Bamdev Gautam. Bhattarai and Gautam recently announced to fight the elections under the Maoist Centre’s election symbol and manifesto.

Bhattarai last month quit the Janata Samajbadi Party and launched his own Nepal Samajbadi Party while Gautam has formed a new Nepal Communist Party Ekata Rastriya Abhiyan.

Bhattarai on July 28 registered the Nepal Socialist Party after defecting from the Janata Samajbadi Party. Gautam on July 29 announced the formation of the Nepal Communist Party Ekata Rastriya Abhiyan.

Senior Maoist Centre leader Haribol Gajurel said it will take around ten days to settle the seat-sharing row.

No party appears willing to compromise, so the problem is going to linger for more days, he said.

“How can we reach a deal when the Congress wants 100 seats and we are insisting on 60 for us? The Unified Socialist and Janata Samajbadi are claiming over 25 seats each. It’s going to be a tough deal,” said Gajurel.