A meeting of leaders from Madhesh-based parties on Thursday formed a task force with an objective to draft a framework for developing a loose alliance of eight Madhesh-centric political parties.

“The meeting has formed an eight-member task force where every party will be represented by a member,” Keshav Jha, a leader from the Rastriya Mukti Party led by Rajendra Mahato, said after the meeting held at Singha Durbar.

A group of leaders from Madhesh-based political parties have been working on forming a ‘loose alliance’ for the past couple of months. They had earlier held an introductory meeting on January 16.

The task force members are Mohammad Istiyak Rayi from Janata Samajbadi Party (JSP), Sharad Singh Yadav from Janamat Party, Manish Kumar Suman from Janata Samajbadi Party-Nepal (JSP-Nepal). Likewise Gangaram Chaudhary from Nagarik Unmukti Party, Laxman Lal Karna from Loktantrik Samajbadi Party, Keshav Jha from Rastriya Mukti Party, Shiva Yadav from Janta Pragatisheel Party and Brijesh Mishra from the Tarai-Madhesh Loktantrik Party are also the members.

The leaders who are trying to bring the parties based in the Tarai-Madhesh region are still struggling to rope in all the forces.

JSP-Nepal led by Upendra Yadav and the Nagarik Unmukti Party, which were absent in the first meeting, were present at the second meeting of Madhesh-based political parties.

However, the Aam Janata Party of Prabhu Sah, and independent lawmaker from Sarlahi Amaresh Kumar Singh were not present in Thursday’s meeting.

Singh was present in the first meeting but Sah didn’t join that gathering as well. Talking to the Post earlier, Sah had ruled out his participation in the meeting of Madhesh-based political parties. However other leaders were optimistic about his participation.

In the meantime, the Madhesh-based political parties also have agreed to develop a common framework on how the Madhesh-based political parties should function in the days to come. Similarly, they also have discussed the values on which they will base their decisions in the future. Thursday’s meeting entrusted the task force with submitting a framework addressing these issues.

“Though the task force has no coordinator, we are assigned to prepare a framework for the functioning of the ‘loose alliance’ of the Madhesh-based parties,” said Manish Kumar Suman, a task force member from the JSP-Nepal.

The leaders at the meeting also decided to warn the government not to implement the recently introduced land ordinance citing multiple flaws in it.

The government on January 10 forwarded five ordinances including one to amend the Land Act 1964, the Forest Act 2019 and the National Park Act 1973 to President Ramchandra Paudel. While President Paudel issued four other ordinances on January 13, he halted the land-related ordinance for a few days, calling it a sensitive matter requiring further study before approving it.

The President issued the last ordinance on January 16 only after Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli assured him of addressing the concerns through a replacement bill.

Suman also said that discussions were held on how to present the parties’ common agenda in a strong way in the parliamentary session that commences on Friday.

Leaders present in Thursday’s meeting said they have decided to express their reservations over the Social Media Bill that was registered by the government in Parliament secretariat on Tuesday. They have decided to oppose it, reasoning that it will have repercussions on freedom of speech.

Two largest parties and coalition partners—the Nepali Congress and the CPN-UML—have announced their plan to amend the proportional representation (PR) system in electoral laws to reduce the number of parties in Parliament as the small forces tend to have an ‘unnatural bargaining for power.’

The ruling coalition’s plans to raise the PR threshold are forcing the regional parties to collaborate. The Congress and the UML blame the PR system for the presence of a large number of political parties in the federal and provincial legislatures, creating instability in governance.

Currently, a political party must secure 3 percent of proportional votes in the House of Representatives and 1.5 percent in provincial assemblies to be eligible to get seats under the PR category. However, Congress and UML leaders have publicly advocated amending the electoral law to raise the bar to 5 percent and 3 percent in the House and provincial assemblies, respectively.