KATHMANDU, JUNE 04
Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli reshuffled his Cabinet retaining only four old Cabinet members – Lilanath Shrestha, Basanta Kumar Nembang, Bishnu Paudel, and Krishna Gopal Shrestha in the Cabinet.
The PM's close confidants - Ishwar Pokharel, who was a deputy prime minister, and Pradeep Kumar Gyawali, who was the minister of foreign affairs earlier - were also removed from the Cabinet.
The PM inducted eight ministers and two state ministers from the Mahantha Thakur-Rajendra Mahato faction of the Janata Samajbadi Party-Nepal.
There are three deputy prime ministers in the new Cabinet: Rajendra Mahato of JSP-N and Raghuvir Mahaseth and Bishnu Prasad Paudel from the CPN-UML.
There are 17 ministers in the current Cabinet. The PM is expected to appoint more ministers from his party later, as the Cabinet can have 25 ministers.
Deputy prime ministers and ministers took the oath of office from the president today and ministers of state took the oath of office from the prime minister this evening.
Co-chairpersons of the Janata Samajbadi Party-Nepal Upendra Yadav and Mahantha Thakur recently expelled each other from the party for allegedly violating party discipline.
Yadav had also expelled Mahato, Laxman Lal Karna, and Sarvendranth Shukla from the party for allegedly violating party discipline.
(From left) Newly appointed deputy prime ministers Rajendra Mahato, Raghuvir Mahaseth, and Bishnu Paudel taking the oath of office and secrecy, in Kathmandu, on Friday.
While the Thakur-Mahato faction decided to back Oli, the Yadav-Bhattarai faction of the JSP-N was in favour of forming a government led by Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba.
A version of this article appears in the print on June 5, 2021, of The Himalayan Times.
