DIGNITY REPORTER

KATHMANDU: With the abrupt split in the Upendra Yadav-led Janata Samajbadi Party, a new force has come to the fore reorganizing the ongoing identity politics in the country. 

Hundreds of party leaders have formed a ‘Pahichanbadi Morcha’—the pro-identity front led by Prof. Mahendra Lawoti as a convener. The Morcha was announced at a press conference organized on May 9. 

According to Khagendra Makhim, a federal member of the Morcha, its main objective was to bring together all the scattered pro-identity forces of the country. Makhim, who had joined Yadav’s party for consolidated identity politics, has decided to reunite the force after Ashok Rai led the team to form another Janata Samajbadi Party. “We were deceived,” Makhim told the Dignity Post. 

Morcha will currently work as a loose forum with a convener, a joint convener, and all other federal members. The federal committee will form essential departments and provincial committees based on 10+1 identity-based federal provinces for which the Morcha will lobby.

Convener Lawoti was the advisor of the Janata Samajbadi Party while Makhim was a member of its political committee.  

Former Maoist leader Gopal Kirati, currently leading the Third People’s Movement Preparation Committee, is expected to join the Morcha as its joint convener. 

“We will form a joint front of like-minded forces and activists and move ahead as per its decision,” said Makhim.