The Nagarik Samajbadi Party, led by former chairman of the Nepal Federation of Indigenous Nationalities Rajkumar Lekhi, merged with the Rajendra Mahato-headed Sadbhawana Party on Tuesday.

At a function organised in Shankhamul, Kathmandu, leaders of the two parties announced the merger after signing a 10-point agreement.

According to Manish Kumar Suman, general secretary of the Sadbhawana Party, 10 leaders of the Lekhi’s party attended the unification function. The unified party would give them respectable positions. Suman hailed the merger as coming together of two ethnicities, a process that would continue with other parties as well.

According to a joint statement, the new force would fight for a separate Tharuhat state.