ITAHARI, AUGUST 12
Thirty-four per cent Provincial Assembly members from Province 1 have been lucky enough to be ministers. Out of 93 PA members, 32 have been ministers in three different cabinets headed by three different chief ministers, namely Sherdhan Rai, Bhim Prashad Acharya, and Rajendra Rai.
The first chief minister of Province 1 Sherdhan Rai had 11-member Cabinet size. Likewise, the short-time Cabinet headed by Bhim Prashad Acharya was of eight members. In addition, the incumbent Province Government led by Rajendra Rai is composed of 14 Cabinet members.
Total number of ministers so far stands at 33. However, Indra Angbo has been repeated in both Sherdhan Rai and Rajendra Rai Cabinets. Therefore, the exact faces to be ministers are 32.
Sherdhan Rai was sworn in as the first chief minister of Province 1 on 14 February 2018. The Rai Cabinet had three state ministers.
Likewise, the eight-member Cabinet of second chief minister Bhim Prashad Acharya had three state ministers.
The incumbent Rajendra Rai Cabinet is composed of 14 members including a lone state minister.
Professionals from different walks of lives from Province 1 have expressed their disappointment over the issue. "Yes, parliamentary politics is all about number game and adequate number in political coalition is required to form Cabinet,'' said Sitaram Ghimire, a political analyst who has completed his Master's Degree in Political Science from Tribhuvan University.
Ghimire added, ''However, the number of ministers must be small and adequate. One party-one minister could have been a great practice.'' He said the partial blame for this ill practive goes to erstwhile Communist Party of Nepal which commanded two thirds majority before crumbling into three parties namely CPN-UML, CPN-Maoist Centre and CPN (United Socialist). ''Had the CPN stood as the single party, the Cabinet faces would have been fewer,'' said Ghimire, ''In the previous two years, the Province 1 Government was just of four ministers.''
Semanta Koirala, an advocate from Itahari, said the provincial cabinet heads must have worked cautiously to ward off possible rebukes on federalism. ''If there is anything that general public do not like is just the Provincial Government because they think it has been extremely large and has not delivered anything substantial to the people,'' said Koirala. ''However, there are visible works of the local governments and the federal governments.''
He said the optimistic scene for independent candidates was also the result of soaring unpopularity of the provincial setup. ''The provincial setup itself is not a problem but its players are making it a problem,'' said Koirala. He added, ''This needs to be corrected. We need better provincial government for better governance. But the Cabinet size must not be too big as we have seen now.''
A version of this article appears in the print on August 13, 2022 of The Himalayan Times.
