Congress finalises ministers’ names, swearing-in today

Kathmandu, August 25

The Nepali Congress today finalised 13 names to be sent to Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal for appointing ministers.

The new ministers will be sworn in at 9:00am tomorrow.

Although the NC and CPN-Maoist Centre had agreed on August 4 to allot 13 ministries to NC and nine, including prime minister, to CPN-Maoist Centre, Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal today agreed to provide altogether 15 ministries to the NC at the request of NC President Sher Bahadur Deuba.

CPN-MC, on the other hand, will now have 10 ministers, including PM Dahal, as agreed between the PM and Deputy Prime Minister Bimalendra Nidhi from the NC.

Although the two parties were considering to merge two ministries industry and commerce that were divided by the previous KP Sharma Oli-led government, they today agreed to keep them separate to adjust the aspirants of the respective parties.

The NC already has two ministers, Bimalendra Nidhi and Ramesh Lekhak, in the government.

The Deuba faction will get eight ministries, the Paudel faction five and the Krishna Prasad Sitaula and Khum Bahadur Khadka factions will get one ministry each as agreed today.

From the Deuba faction, Arjun Narsingh KC, Prakash Sharan Mahat, Bal Krishna Khand, Jivan Bahadur Shahi, Keshav Kumar Budhathoki and Surya Man Gurung will become ministers. Nidhi and Lekhak are also from this faction.

KC has already served minister thrice, holding education and health portfolios and being a state minister during the Panchayat era; Mahat has served as energy minister and state minister of foreign affairs; Khand has served as energy minister and state minister for education; Budhathoki was assistant minister during the Panchayat era, while Gurung has served as law and justice minister.

Shankar Bhandari will be a minister from the Khum Bahadur Khadka faction, while Gagan Thapa will be a minister from the Krishna Prasad Sitaula faction.

A separate meeting of the Paudel faction held at the residence of General Secretary Shashanka Koirala that Sita Devi Yadav (NC’s treasurer), Nabindra Raj Joshi, Hridaya Ram Thani, Dipak Giri and Romi Gauchan Thakali will become ministers.

Thakali has already served as assistant minister for foreign affairs.

Yadav, Joshi, Shahi, Thani, Giri, Bhandari and Thapa will be first time ministers.

Although Deuba requested Shekhar Koirala to accept any of the remaining ministries in the NC’s quota other than foreign affairs, Koirala rejected the offer, according to sources close to him.

Deuba then promised to make him foreign minister in the next government to be formed under his leadership. Koirala rejected that offer as well, said the sources.

Deuba is flying to Singapore at 12 noon tomorrow for a regular health check-up and is scheduled to return in a week.

He will send seven names for state ministers from the NC to the PM after his return, said the sources.