Kathmandu, 8 April: Nepali Congress’ senior leader and the leader of the Koirala camp in the party held a meeting with Prime Minister Pushpakamal Dahal Friday morning.
The meeting was related to the expansion of the Council of Ministers, according to sources. Koirala had reached Baluatar along with leader Dr Milendra Rijal to meet PM Dahal.
During the meeting, Koirala had proposed assigning one additional minister from the NC to the seat that remained vacant after the Janamat Party quit the cabinet. Koirala also informed that his camp in the NC was humiliated after NC president Sher Bahadur Deuba allotted only two seats for his camp.
Due to the dispute between the two factions – Deuba camp and Koirala camp – out of eight seats allotted for the NC, it was able to send only four ministers in the cabinet from which the cabinet led by Dahal is still incomplete.
Of late, when the cabinet was expanded, Prakash Sharan Mahat – Finance Minister, Ramesh Rizal – Industry, Commerce and Supplies and Sita Gurung – Urban Development Minister joined the government under the leadership of vice president Purna Bahadur Khadka, who took over the Defense Ministry along with the Deputy Prime Minister from the NC.
Deuba had wished to send vice president Dhanraj Gurung and MP Dig Bahadur Limbu to the cabinet from his camp in the NC, however, due to the dissatisfaction from the Koirala camp, the former took back his decision.
Gagan Thapa, general secretary of the party, took the stand that the Koirala camp should not join the government without taking three ministries. After the Shekhar-Gagan group did not name ministers, president Deuba also stopped the swearing-in of two ministers from the Deuba camp.
People’s News Monitoring Service
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