Kathmandu, March 23
Four partners of the ruling alliance - CPN-Maoist Centre, Nepali Congress, CPN (Unified Socialist) and Janata Samajwadi Party-Nepal - today discussed Cabinet portfolio distribution, but failed to reach a conclusion.
Yesterday, all the top leaders of the 10-party ruling alliance had discussed the division of ministries.
Nepali Congress Vice-president Purna Bahadur Khadka told THT that the four parties discussed Cabinet portfolio division but they needed to hold more talks to reach a deal. Asked when the PM would expand his Cabinet, Khadka said the issue was for the PM to decide.
As per the constitutional provision, there can only be 25 members in the Cabinet, including the PM. As there are 10 parties in the current alliance, the PM faces the challenge of giving every party in the alliance a win-win deal in the power sharing arrangement.
Meanwhile, Loktantrik Samajwadi Party-Nepal leader Sarvendra Nath Shukla told THT that he and his party leaders would meet Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba to tell him that their party should get a good deal in the power sharing arrangement. He said his party was a partner in the alliance led by Nepali CongressPresident Sher Bahadur Deuba before the November 20 election, and his party should be treated in the same spirit.
"We joined the NC-led alliance after JSP-N left the alliance and we contested parliamentary elections only in seven firstpast-the-post election constituencies as we had to sacrifice for other alliance partners.
This means we won very few seats just because we left many constituencies for other alliance partners," Shukla said.
He said his party should be called in all alliance meetings and be offered at least two ministries in the Pushpa Kamal Dahal-led Cabinet.
"We are not in favour of supporting the JSP-N candidate in the by-election to be held in Bara Constituency-2, but the matter will be discussed after the Cabinet expansion," he added.
LSP-N leader Keshav Jha said his party would meet both NC President Deuba and the PM to remind them that the LSP-N should be given a respectable position in the ruling alliance's power sharing deal.
PM Dahal, who chose not to expand his Cabinet until the vote of confidence, has intensified negotiations with alliance partners on Cabinet portfolio divisions, but until now he has not finalised the deal. The PM presently holds more than a dozen Cabinet portfolios.
A version of this article appears in the print on March 24, 2023, of The Himalayan Times.
