Kathmandu, March 16: Prime Minister Sushila Karki has drawn wide criticism after appointing her chief personal secretary, Adarsha Kumar Shrestha, as chairperson of the National Trust for Nature Conservation.
Karki made the appointment on Sunday, at a time when the House of Representatives election has already concluded, and a new government is expected soon. She leads a caretaker administration.
The position had remained vacant after former minister Ain Bahadur Shahi resigned from the post.
Former education minister Sumana Shrestha, Mahabir Pun, and Gen Z campaigners, including Rakshya Bom and Tanuja Pandey, have publicly criticised the decision.
Sumana wrote on the social media platform X that actions are labelled differently depending on who carries them out. When others do it, it is called nepotism and favouritism, she said. When the same act is done by oneself, it is presented as recognition of contribution. When others divide posts, it is seen as political sharing, she wrote, but when the same thing is done by oneself, it is framed as responsibility sharing. Similarly, actions described as “setting deals” when done by others are called mutual relations when done by oneself.
“Opposition is raised against everything others do. When we do the same thing, it becomes subtle or constructive feedback,” she wrote.
Sumana also questioned the government over the Gen Z movement investigation commission report, which has yet to be made public.
“The report has still not been released. Where is the report?” she wrote. “Whose decision is this really, the one making the decision or the one making it happen? What is the deal behind it?”
Mahabir Pun, a former education minister who recently won the election from Myagdi as an independent candidate, also said the appointment of the prime minister’s personal secretary to the post was wrong.
He said the decision had dragged the prime minister’s reputation into the dust. Pun even urged Shrestha not to accept the position.
“Please do not let a small temptation destroy the historic respect that the prime minister has earned. Old parties collapsed because of nepotism, sycophancy, favoritism and flattery. If the same pattern continues, new parties will also disappear over time,” he said.
Pun added that the incoming government must pay attention while making such appointments. He said he would continue to raise his voice to keep leaders alert.
Gen Z representative Rakshya Bom also criticised the decision on social media.
She said Gen Z protesters did not face bullets in their heads and chests so that prime ministers and ministers could distribute posts in councils, departments and committees as farewell gifts to their own people.
“Do you know why they did it?” she wrote. “They did it for a dream, that this country would slowly begin to breathe the air of good governance. Not so that leaders could divide up chairs as gifts for their loyalists.”
She warned leaders to be careful, saying those chairs were stained with blood.
“The streets have not forgotten the blood. A chair stained with blood will not raise your stature,” she wrote.
Another Gen Z representative, Tanuja Pandey, said the decision mocked the blood of the martyrs. She said it looked ironic that such incidents keep repeating around those who claim to stand above favouritism.
Pandey said history shows every decade what happens to those who mock the nation and the martyrs.
“Do not practice disgusting politics,” she wrote. “The game of power and access has already pushed many people onto the streets, and you should not become the next character. History never forgives traitors who turn people’s hopes, pain and sacrifices into tools for personal gain and use the blood of martyrs as a ladder to power.”
Shrestha had earlier been drawn into controversy after appointing his wife, Sangita Shrestha, to a position in the prime minister’s secretariat. Following public criticism, Prime Minister Karki later removed her from office.
Pandey also recalled that episode.
“It is not very old that Adarsha Shrestha, the prime minister’s personal secretary, tried to appoint his own wife, Sangita Shrestha, as a personal joint secretary equivalent to a joint secretary. That happened when youth movements and talk of a new political culture were strong. Yet today the same person, serving as the prime minister’s personal secretary, has reached the point of being recommended to head an institution like the National Trust for Nature Conservation,” she wrote.
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