A few days ago, leaders of the CPN (Maoist Centre) and CPN (Unified Socialist) had decided to contest the upcoming general and provincial polls scheduled for November 20 with a common manifesto. But both the parties have been unable to formalise the decision.

A meeting between Maoist Centre chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal and Unified Socialist chief Madhav Kumar Nepal on August 22 had taken a decision to that effect.

With leaders occupied in other tasks, the decision to contest the election with a common manifesto still remains on the backburner, say Unified Socialist leaders.

“We are about to finalise our party’s manifesto,” Bijay Poudel, deputy general secretary of Unified Socialist, told the Post. “I don’t think the Maoist Centre and the Unified Socialist will have a common manifesto for the November election.”

Lilamani Pokharel, a member of the Maoist Centre’s manifesto drafting committee, however, said both the parties have been writing their manifestos separately and once they are completed, the two will be merged.

“We will have a common manifesto,” Pokharel told the Post. “I don't know why some leaders of the Unified Socialist are saying otherwise. We are working on ours and will coordinate with the Unified Socialist after we complete our draft.”

The two parties were formed after the Supreme court annulled the Nepal Communist Party (NCP) on March 7, 2021. NCP was formed through a merger between the CPN-UML and the Maoist Centre after the general elections of 2017. However, with the court's decision to annul the NCP, it eventually split into three parties.

The Maoist Centre and the Unified Socialist are now in the five-party ruling coalition, which contested the May local elections as an alliance and aims to continue the partnership in the November elections also. But with the seat-sharing talks among the alliance parties currently at an impasse, the Unified Socialist leaders have started airing critical views of a common manifesto.

A meeting of the alliance’s task force on seat-sharing held on Monday morning was also inconclusive as each party wants a bigger share of lower house seats, according to leaders.