by Nishan Khatiwada in The Kathmandu Post, June 13, 2023
The Rastriya Swatantra Party has been focusing on organisation building after it decided to pull out support for the government. By this, the party aims to strengthen its base at the grassroots level for the next local elections, say party leaders.
Kabindra Burlakoti, the party’s joint general secretary, said as many as 30,438 members have been verified with their memberships renewed for the next five years. There are an estimated 85,000 offline members of the party who got their memberships in far-flung areas, via the municipality, the rural municipality, ward units, or district committees and also through election candidates, Burlakoti said. He added that as many as 64,922 members who have applied for party membership are yet to be verified owing to a lack of required documents or problems in the submitted credentials.
Verified applicants listed on the voter roll will be ‘ordinary members’ of the party while the applicants without name on the list will be ‘preliminary members’.
People in and out of the country can get membership via the party’s mobile app and also through the local level committees. After applying for membership, the district or the municipality concerned verify the credentials.
The party has the highest number of members in Bagmati followed by Koshi. Karnali has the least number of members.
The party has formed 36 central departments, seven provincial committees, and the process of forming party departments has already begun in the provinces.
The constituency level committees have been formed in 155 of the 165 constituencies. The constituency-based committees have five members each. The local unit committees and ward committees have 11 members each, which the party is considering downsizing if necessary. The size of a provincial committee will be determined by the number of constituencies in the province concerned.
“Of late, we have been reaching the doors of the general public, making our presentation and the issues we have raised in Parliament,” Rastriya Swatantra Party chief whip Santosh Pariyar said. “The work we have done so far has been our biggest selling point.”
Pariyar said their advocacy for digital democracy, primary elections practices and a system free of nepotism has been attracting the people to the party. “Lawmakers from our party are transparent and we have been preparing report cards of our works and income,” he said. “We proudly present our works upon reaching the public’s door.”
Formed just about five months before the polls, the party won seven seats in the first-past-the-post elections and 13 under the proportional representational category in last year’s general election. The party registered impressive victories, defeating the candidates of the coalition involving big parties in two of the three constituencies in the last month’s bypolls. The party is the fourth-largest force in the House with 21 seats.
The party has not formed any sister organisations but it has a Rapid Action Team, which is tasked with taking action in cases of accidents, incidents, or disasters.
https://kathmandupost.com/politics/2023/06/13/out-of-government-rsp-working-to-strengthen-its-base
