KATHMANDU, AUGUST 1

CPN-Maoist Centre Spokesperson Narayan Kaji Shrestha said today that the Cabinet would be expanded in the next two days.

Briefing mediapersons after the party's standing committee meeting here today, Shrestha said CPN-MC Chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal would hold discussion with other constituents of the five-party alliance separately and collectively and help finalise names of the ministers to be inducted in the Sher Bahadur Deuba-led government.

In response to a journalist's query, Shrestha said the PM had to wait to expand the Cabinet as the Upendra Yadav-Baburam Bhattarai faction of the Janata Samajbadi Party-Nepal and the Madhav Kumar Nepal-Jhalanath Khanal faction of the CPN-UML had urged the government to delay Cabinet expansion. "But the coalition government cannot wait anymore," he said, adding that delay in Cabinet expansion would affect the five-party alliance government. He said his party wanted to ensure that the current government and the House of Representatives would complete its full term.

He said the standing committee would meet again tomorrow to discuss Cabinet expansion.

Shrestha said the standing committee also decided to postpone the central committee meeting scheduled for August 4 till August 14. He said the party also drew the attention of the government to drowning of Darchula resident Jay Singh Dhami in the Mahakali River while crossing it using an improvised cable crossing. Darchula District Administration had issued a press release saying that the incident was being probed.

A version of this article appears in the print on August 2 2021, of The Himalayan Times.