Nepal’s regional political parties that emerged as prominent forces mainly after the political change of popular movement of 2006 have entered into a stage of disputes and divisions.

On May 5, Ashok Rai, one of the top leaders of Upendra Yadav-led Janata Samajbadi Party-Nepal (JSP-Nepal), along with some other key leaders, split the party and registered an application for a new party at the Election Commission. The election body registered the Janata Samajbadi Party under Rai’s leadership. Seven of the 12 federal lawmakers of the Yadav-led JSP-Nepal joined the Rai-led party.

Yadav on Monday moved the Supreme Court challenging the Election Commission’s decision to register the new party, accusing the body of giving recognition to the Rai-led group as a new political party unconstitutionally. The case is sub-judice in the court.

Yadav, who was deputy prime minister and minister for health and population in the Pushpa Kamal Dahal government, resigned from his post on Monday. His party pulled out of the government.

Later in the evening, Dahal appointed one minister and one minister of state from the newly formed party led by Rai.

“With the resignation of our party’s ministers, our party has withdrawn its support to the government,” Prakash Adhikari, a federal lawmaker of JSP-Nepal, told the Post.

The JSP-Nepal’s parliamentary party leader Upendra Yadav, writing a letter to Speaker Devraj Ghimire, withdrew the party’s support to the government.

On the other hand, the JSP-Nepal, which had been leading the Madhesh government since 2017, has been limited to a minority position after the CPN-UML and CPN (Maoist Centre) withdrew their support to the provincial government. Yadav’s JSP-Nepal is the only party to get the opportunity to lead a provincial government continuously for seven years. With the UML and Maoist Centre withdrawing their support, it is almost certain to be out of power in the province for the first time in seven years.

It is not only the JSP-Nepal that has split.

In February, Rajendra Mahato, a key leader of the Loktantrik Samajbadi Party (LSP), quit the organisation to announce his new campaign, Rastriya Mukti Andolan, literally the ‘National Liberation Movement.’

Bijay Kumar Gachchhadar, who led the Madheshi Janaadhikar Forum-Democratic, merged his party with Nepali Congress. Once a powerful leader in national politics, Gachchhadar has now lost his influence in Madhesh as well.

Hridayesh Tripathi, a prominent Madheshi leader, formed a separate outfit, the Janata Pragatisheel Party, over two years ago.

A senior Maoist leader, Prabhu Sah from the Madhesh, also formed his own Aam Janata Party in December 2022.

It is not only the traditional forces but also the emerging ones that are grappling with crises.

The Nagarik Unmukti Party (NUP), which emerged mainly from the latest general election, has been embroiled in a factional dispute between party chair Ranjita Shrestha and her husband, Resham Lal Chaudhary. The rift caused the party to lose the opportunity to lead the Sudurpaschim provincial government last month.

While Shrestha has joined hands with the Dahal-led ruling coalition, Chaudhary is lobbying to collaborate with Nepali Congress.

The regional political forces, which had emerged as a serious challenge for mainstream political forces such as Nepali Congress, CPN-UML and the Maoist Centre, have lost their influence drastically in the recent years, mainly due to intra-party feuds and divisions.

“They try to agitate for their rights, but they also indulge in a politics of power, which contrasts with each other,” Tula Narayan Shah, a Madhesh-based political analyst, told the Post. “Probably one of their demands can be mustered through the protest, but the other can only be achieved from the House of Representatives.”

Experts think that despite their shortcomings, regional parties’ relevance is still intact. “If the traditional regional parties could not prove their significance, they will be replaced by the new ones,” Lokraj Baral, a political analyst, told the Post. “However, the relevance of regional parties will remain intact.”

He said that with the influence of Yadav diminishing in the province, CK Raut of Janamat Party is likely to take his position in the days to come if the latter can prove his credibility.

Experts say that regional parties, rather than being driven to address the regional issues for which they were constituted, got diverted from their initial motives and became self-centered, culminating in splits.

“When marginalised people constitute the party, those parties are often leader-centric,” Shah told the Post. “Parties where a single leader holds sway are less accommodative and more autocratic. Internal democracy is weak in those parties. As a result, they split.”