Kathmandu, March 30

Economist and former National Planning Commission Vice-chairman Swarnim Wagle today announced he was leaving the Nepali Congress.

Writing a message on his official Facebook page, he announced he would be active in a new public role with the beginning of the new Nepali year 2080.

In his Facebook Post, he said he had decided to leave the party with which he was involved since the Satyagraha of 1985 and the First People's Movement of 1989. He also wrote that the association of his family with the Nepali Congress dated back five decades.

He mentioned that he contributed significantly to economic policy and planning, intellectual-theoretical discussions and training, and expansion of international legitimacy of the party indirectly for 30 years and directly for the last 10 years.

He wrote, 'The historical team of BP Koirala, Ganeshman Singh, Subarna Shumsher and Kishun Ji (Krishna Prashad Bhattarai) had now turned into an incompetent gang of nepotism.'

Wagle said he could not stay in the party due to continuous 'insults and humiliations from the Deuba-Arzu gang'.

He was referring to the behaviour of Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba and Arzu Rana Deuba.

He added, 'Now the good people of the Congress-Communist, the advocates of freedom and development who are not affiliated with the party, the Nepalis who are outside the periphery of elite politics, and Nepalis who remember the good of Nepal even if they live abroad, should build a strong alternative democratic force.'

He wrote that by carrying the agenda of clean democracy and economic progress on the foundation of good governance, he would strive to re-create the country by 'breaking the common despair'.

'Swarnim Wagle will join Rastriya Swatantra Party by Saturday and he will also contest the by-elections slated for 23 April,' former minister of labour, employment and security and RSP lawmakers DP Aryal told THT.

He further said, 'He must join a political party to contest elections.

We have been in contact with Swarnim Wagle for a long time and we have also discussed his entry into the RSP on several occasions,' added Aryal.

It is reported that Rastriya Swatantra Party has offered Wagle a ticket to contest the by-election from Tanahun Constituency-1.

Wagle has served as president of the Institute for Integrated Development Studies, a Kathmandu-based think tank.

From 2014 to 2018, he was a member of the National Planning Commission and later the vice-chairman.

After completing his tenure at the National Planning Commission, he went to New York to take a job as chief economic adviser of the Asia and Pacific Regional Bureau of the United Nations Development Programme, covering 36 countries.

He has more than 20 years of experience working with the World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme.

He was born in Gorkha and studied at Budhanilkantha School in Kathmandu.

He holds a BA in Economics from the Australian National University.

Wagle, a member of the manifesto drafting committee of the party, had expressed his desire to contest the previous general election. But Nepali Congress did not give him a ticket at that time.

A version of this article appears in the print on March 31, 2023, of The Himalayan Times.