KATHMANDU: Former Deputy Prime Minister and Acting President of Nepali Congress Ram Chandra Paudel on Monday posted a photograph of his wife making tea on firewood on her backyard at Bohoratar on the outskirts on Kathmandu.

Stands by her side is apparently an empty cylinder of cooking gas.

Paudel has given a terse caption to it: mero ghar maa naakaabandi ko prabhaav yesto chha (This is how my house has been affected by blockade).

According to Paudel's aide Chiranjeevi Adhikari, cooking gas ran out in the high-profile leader's house for two weeks and sexagenarian Sabita Paudel has using firewood to make tea and cook vegetables and curry. She, however, uses electric cooker to cook rice and her kitchen do not have any induction heater, which came into vogue in Kathmandu and other urban centres in the wake of shortage of cooking gas.

Despite his clout, according to Adhikari, Paudel asked his wife to use firewood at the time general public were hit hard by cooking gas shortage.

Nepal is currently reeling under an acute shortage of daily essentials and fuel including cooking gas due to blockade at the Nepal-India border for about two months.