The Janata Samajbadi Party-Nepal (JSP-Nepal), which has three members in the National Assembly, has indicated that it may stand in favour of the ordinances presented by the government in Parliament.

A meeting of the JSP-Nepal’s executive council on Monday formed a task force led by the party’s vice-chair Raj Kishor Yadav and tasked it with studying the ordinances and discussing it with stakeholders.

The task force held discussions with experts on Tuesday and Wednesday to conclude whether or not to support the ordinances.

Yadav said that the study report would be submitted to the party before it makes the final decision at the parliamentary party meeting on Thursday.

“Our party will neither support nor reject the ordinances altogether but will make a decision based on merits,” Yadav told the Post.

The KP Sharma Oli government brought six ordinances when Parliament was not in session. However, the opposition parties lambasted the government’s move, claiming it tried to undermine the role of Parliament.

The ordinances brought by the government are the Ordinance to Amend Some Nepal Acts Related to Promoting Good Governance and Public Service Delivery (2025); the Economic Procedure and Financial Accountability (First Amendment) Ordinance (2025); the Privatisation (First Amendment) Ordinance (2025); and the Ordinance to Amend Certain Nepal Acts Related to Improving the Economic and Business Environment and Enhancing Investment (2025); and Ordinance to Amend the Land Act 1964, the Forest Act 2019 and the National Park Act 1973.

Also, the government issued an ordinance to amend Some Nepal Acts Related to Cooperatives on December 25.

As per the parliamentary provision, the government presented all the ordinances at Parliament meeting on the first day of the winter session on January 31. Deliberations on the ordinances are scheduled for Thursday. Though the ruling coalition commands a clear majority in the House of Representatives to pass the ordinances, it is one vote short of a majority in the National Assembly.

In the 59-member National Assembly, the ruling coalition commands 29 members (including two nominated members, Bamdev Gautam and Anjan Shakya). Therefore, they need the support of the JSP-Nepal to pass the ordinances.

As the JSP-Nepal’s support became crucial to pass the ordinances, the party formed the task force to study them. After two days of discussion with subject experts, the task force on Wednesday indicated it’d vote in favour of ordinances in the National Assembly.

While leaders from ruling parties have been trying hard to persuade JSP-Nepal leadership to vote in favour of the ordinance, leaders from the opposition camp have also held talks with them to make the stance against the ordinances stronger.

Head of the Publicity Department of Congress, Min Bahadur Bishwakarma, said that the party reached out to JSP-Nepal leadership to help pass the ordinances in the National Assembly. According to Bishwakarma, leaders from both parties during the discussion agreed to help each other.

When asked if helping each other can be inferred as the JSP-Nepal coming on board the government in return for the party’s vote in favour of ordinances in the upper house, Bishwakarma said parties have not discussed the matters to that level.

“Both the parties’ leaders agreed to help each other, but what would be the form of help is not categorically defined,” Bishwakarma said.

Mahesh Bartaula, chief whip of the CPN-UML, is optimistic that both Houses will pass the ordinances at Thursday’s meeting.

“Some political parties might have differences on the content of the ordinances, but it also can be revised by the replacement bill,” Bartaula said. “In brief, I would say, ordinances will be passed.”

However, spokesperson of JSP-Nepal Manish Kumar Suman claims that the party has not reached to any formal decision whether to support or oppose the ordinances.

The JSP-Nepal task force meeting with subject experts on Tuesday focused mainly on some provisions on the land-related ordinance which, according to them, are serious.

The ordinance envisions providing free ownership to landless Dalits and squatters who have built houses and lived on public land for a long time. The ordinance, tabled in Parliament on January 31 for discussion, also includes granting land ownership to squatters by charging prescribed fees.

The task force discussed economic ordinances with experts on Wednesday.

“Experts have pointed to Land ordinances as problematic,” a JSP-Nepal leader told the Post. “With the amendment of the Land Act, there are chances that land could be distributed to a certain group of people and converted into political gains.”

The Land Act provides that unused land that has been unoccupied for more than ten years and has not been used for agricultural activities can be distributed to landless people; however, the Forest Act considers riverbanks part of the forest. Referring to these two Acts as problematic, the government decided to resolve the issues through the land-related ordinance.

When President Ramchandra Paudel issued four other ordinances recommended by the government on January 13, he halted the ordinance related to the Land, which was issued after a few days.

The President issued the land-related ordinance on January 15 only after Prime Minister Oli assured President Paudel of addressing the concerns through the replacement bill.

Despite voting in favour of Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli during his floor test, JSP-Nepal has not been part of the Oli Cabinet. However, the Janata Samajbadi Party, formed by a splinter faction of the JSP-Nepal, is on board the Oli government. JSP-Nepal chair Upendra Yadav, however, has challenged the registration of the new party under the leadership of Ashok Rai in the court.

The Upendra Yadav-led party, which used to be the sixth-largest in the House of Representatives with 12 lawmakers before the split, has been drastically weakened as seven lawmakers joined the new party led by Rai.

The JSP-Nepal had been leading the Madhesh Province government continuously after the implementation of the federal system in 2017 but it was ousted from the provincial government in July 2024 soon after the Congress-UML formed the coalition government at the centre.

A source privy to the development claims that JSP-Nepal is in political bargaining with the ruling alliance to include them in the coalition should the party support the ordinances in the National Assembly.

But leaders from the prime minister’s party, UML, and JSP-Nepal didn’t admit it.

“It is obvious for any political party to have expectations from the government, but the JSP-Nepal is not bargaining for power with the ruling coalition to support the ordinances in the National Assembly,” stressed Bartaula.