Surkhet, February 2

The Office of Chief Minister and Council of Ministers for Province 6 has been established in Surkhet’s Birendranagar today.

The office was set up in Regional Administration Office building, while the Regional Administration Office itself is due to be shifted to the Regional Postal Directorate.  The office, along with all regional level offices across the country, will be dysfunctional after provincial governments are formed in all the provinces.

While the government has appointed the then mid-western regional administrator Suresh Pradhan as principal secretary of the Office of Provincial Council of Ministers, joint-secretaries Yagyaraj Bohara and Keshavraj Acharya have been assigned as administration secretary and law secretary respectively. On his part, Principal Secretary Pradhan, who assumed office today, expressed his commitment to be sincere towards his duties and said all the provincial ministries would be set up in a week’s time.

The province will have seven ministries namely, Ministry of Economic Affairs and Planning, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Law, Ministry of Physical Infrastructures Development, Ministry of Social Development, Ministry of Industry and Tourism, Ministry of Forest and Environment, and Ministry of Land Management, Agriculture and Cooperatives. The province will have government led by the left alliance. While the left alliance has 33 seats, including 20 of CPN-UML alone, Nepali Congress and Rastriya Prajatantra Party had won just six and one provincial seats respectively here.

Meanwhile, there has been an agreement among alliance partners to leave the post of the chief minister in this province to the CPN-Maoist Centre. Mahendra Bahadur Shahi (Kalikot) and Naresh Bhandari (Jumla) are seen as the contenders for the post of the chief minister in the province.

According to CPN-MC PA member Dharmaraj Regmi, the first meeting of the parliamentary party to be held tomorrow will decide on the CM candidate who will also be the leader of the parliamentary party.