By TRN Online, Kathmandu, July 26: Leaders and party cadres of both the factions of Janata Samajwadi Party-Nepal (JSP-N) have reached the Election Commission along with their identity cards.

In order to resolve the JSP-N authenticity dispute, the EC had called 51 members of the executive committee formed during the party unification for 'head count'.

Raj Kumar Shrestha, spokesperson at the Commission, said that works relating to the identification of the party members belonging to Mahanta Thakur's faction and Upendra Yadav's faction were being held currently.

According to Shrestha, the identification works had begun from 11:00 am on Monday morning.

Meanwhile, executive member Mohammad Ishtiyak Rai has claimed that the majority of executive members belong to the Yadav-led faction. Two leaders of Chairman Thakur's faction are also supporting Chairman Yadav in today's headcount.

"Over 30 executive members belonging to Yadav-led faction are present at the EC for identification," said Rai.

A five-member bench at the EC which has been hearing the JSP-N authenticity dispute had called the members of the central executive committee for identification. Following the Commission's move to call the members for headcount, Chairman Thakur had filed a writ petition against in the Supreme Court (SC) the EC's decision. However, a single bench of Justice Kumar Regmi refused to issue interim order as per Thakur's demand.

The central executive committee of JSP-N comprises 51 members. The party was registered in the EC on July 8, 2020. The intra-party rift sparked in JSP-N after Thakur's group decided to support the government led by former Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli while Yadav's faction decided to stand in the opposition.