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Finally, Nepal's beleaguered Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba has a party. About time too as mid-term polls, widely expected to be disrupted by violent Maoist militants, are due in two months.
His close confidante and Home Minister Khum Bahadur Khadka formally registered the Nepali Congress (Democracy) with the Election Commission on Monday, five days after the EC recognized the faction headed by Girija Prasad Koirala as the genuine Nepali Congress.
"Our election symbol is the comb," Khadka, flanked by three other senior party leaders, told journalists outside the EC.
The oldest and biggest political party of this tiny South Asian nation split vertically in late May mainly because of serious differences between Deuba and Koirala over whether or not to impose another spell of emergency.
Deuba argued that it was necessary to quash the violence unleashed by 'Maoist terrorists'. The latest spell of emergency, imposed after the split in the NC, expired in August.
After breaking away from the faction led by Koirala, Deuba also dissolved the 205-member lower house of parliament and called for fresh mid-term polls. The move, apparently, helped Deuba avoid facing a no-trust motion.
But as the date for the election, which the government plans to hold in eight phases, approaches, opposition parties are expressing serious doubts over its smooth conduct owing to the Maoist violence.
The Maoists want to topple the democratic polity and monarchy and institute a republican state in Nepal.
However, the Nepali Congress, Communist Party of Nepal-United Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML), Rashtriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) and Nepal Workers' and Peasants' Party (NWPP) want to bring the Maoists into the political mainstream.
And the recent threat by Maoist leaders to prevent the Deuba government from holding elections from November 13 has everyone worried.
The two main Maoist leaders - Prachanda, alias Pushpa Kamal Dahal, and Dr Babu Ram Bhattarai - plan to call a three-day national strike from November 11.
At the same time, they left the door open for negotiations.
"We once again express our commitment to come forward responsibly and with enough flexibility to find a forward-looking political solution to the problem through talks and dialogue," the two leaders, believed to be underground somewhere in India, said in a joint statement issued on Saturday.
However, they have warned to fight till the end if the government does not reciprocate and continues to suppress the 'great movement'. They are believed to command an estimated 10,000-strong militia spread across the country.
Saturday's was the eighth statement of its kind issued by the Maoists in the last three months.
But the Deuba government has serious doubts about the Maoists' sincerity, especially after they unilaterally violated a ceasefire that held for more than four months in late November last year.
Emergency followed and post-November 2001, nearly 3,000 persons, mostly Maoists, lost their lives in the ensuing eruption of hostilities.
A violence-weary public finally came out on the streets of the capital, Kathmandu, on Sunday, September 22, to put pressure on the government to bring the Maoists back to the negotiating table.
"There is no point in killing each other," said Raju Karki, a taxi driver, inbetween his desperate quest for clients in downtown Kathmandu.
"This (violence) has to stop for the betterment of all poor Nepalis, people like us. There are no tourists, business is down and there is not enough money to make ends meet," he complained.
But with the government bent on suppressing the Maoist violence by force, it's not the economy but only the head count, on both sides, that is showing an upward trend.
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