Leaders of the seven parties at a programme on Thursday to announce FRA

Leaders of the seven parties at a programme on Thursday to announce FRA

10 July, Kathmandu: UCPN (Maoist) and other six political parties favoring identity based federalism have announced formation of a Federal Republican Alliance (FRA), Nepal.

Besides the main opposition party UCPN-M, the other constituents of the FRA are Madhesi People’s Rights Forum (Democratic), Madhesi People’s Rights Forum, Nepal, Terai Madhesi Democratic Party, Federal Socialist Party, Nepal Sadbhawana Party and Terai Madhes Sadbhawana Party.

At a programme organised to announce the formation of the FRA, the leaders of the FRA constituent parties said that they will push for identity based federalism and that they will have common agenda in the CA for this.

The leaders claimed the FRA will exert pressure on other parties for promulgation of the new progressive constitution by the deadline, January 22, 2015.

A few weeks back, UCPN-M has reached a working unity with with five communist parties, mostly with those which had broken away from it to form a new party.

This is not the first time the ex-rebel party has forme alliance with the Madhes-based parties. The Maoist party and the Madhesi parties had formed a similar coalition, Federal Democratic Republican Alliance (FDRA) in 2011. However, the FDRA broke before the second Constituent Assembly (CA) election in November 2013 as the Madhes-based parties refused to form an electoral alliance with the UCPN-M.