By Our Reporter

Rumours have it that the government is again trying to issue an ordinance to split some political parties.  The delay in summoning the winter session of the Parliament has also fueled such speculations.  The Maoist leaders look more suspicious about such an ordinance.

Earlier in October last year, Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli was also working to issue an ordinance with same goal but he withdrew his plan because of strong opposition from the Nepali Congress.

Now, some leaders of the smaller parties mired by internal disputes are reportedly urging PM Oli and Nepali Congress president Sher Bahadur Deuba to introduce an ordinance so that they could split their parties and form new ones or merge with other parties.

In Auguts 2021, the Deuba-led government introduced an ordinance amending the Political Party Act 2017 to ease Madhav Kumar Nepal to form the Unified Socialist Party by breaching the UML. Deuba faced criticism from UML for introducing the ordinance.  Now both UML and NC leaders are trying to introduce similar ordinances to break the smaller parties like Rastriya Swatantra Party, Unified Socialist Party and others.

However, leaders of both the UML and NC have refuted the rumours simply stating that they are not aware of such a plan.

The political parties which prepared the Political Party Act 2017 to discourage the divisions of the parties are now exercising to divide the parties by introducing ordinances by bypassing the parliament. This is not a democratic exercise. The practice could affect the entire democratic system as the leaders in power often resort to such practices to break rival parties.  When the parties become weak, the party system itself weakens. Thus, the political parties should not resort to unethical practices like introducing ordinances to break the rival parties.