ITAHARI: Nearly half of the provincial lawmakers in Koshi have become ministers within three years of the second term of the Koshi Province Assembly.
With the recent reshuffle of the Koshi Cabinet by Chief Minister Hikmat Karki on Tuesday, 41 out of 93 members of the Provincial Assembly have already served in the provincial Cabinet.
The province has seen three chief ministers in three years. Two of them have held more than one term.
The CPN-UML is the largest party in the Provincial Assembly with 40 members (including the deputy speaker). The Nepali Congress (NC) follows with 29 members, while the CPN (Maoist Centre) has 13, the Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) has six, including the Speaker, and the CPN (Unified Socialist) and the Janata Samajbadi Party (JSP-Nepal) have four and one member, respectively.
NC Chief Whip in the Provincial Assembly Gopal Tamang said the Cabinet reshuffle was carried out in line with an agreement among coalition partners. “The reshuffle should have taken place three days earlier,” he said. “As per the agreement, one minister was to prepare the budget once and then hand over the responsibility to others.”
When asked whether the reshuffle was aimed at power-sharing, Tamang said it was rather about giving everyone a turn.
The NC has joined the coalition government led by UML’s Hikmat Karki under the leadership of Pradip Sunuwar. Sunuwar is serving in the provincial Cabinet for the third time. He earlier held ministerial roles in the Cabinets led by Uddhav Thapa and Kedar Karki as well.
In Karki’s first term as chief minister, the provincial Cabinet had six members—Til Kumar Menyangbo, Buddhi Kumar Rajbhandari, Durga Prasad Chapagain, Jeevan Acharya, Bhakti Prasad Sitoula, and Nirmala Limbu.
In his second term, Karki initially appointed three ministers—Til Kumar Menyangbo, Panchakarna Rai and Ek Raj Karki—and one minister of state, Srijana Rai. He expanded the Cabinet a few days later, inducting Leelaballabh Adhikari, Buddhi Kumar Rajbhandari and Ram Prasad Mehta as ministers, and Niran Rai as a minister of state.
In his third term, Karki appointed Ram Bahadur Rana, Panchakarna Rai, Ek Raj Karki, Ganesh Upreti, Narayan Bahadur Burja Magar and Leelaballabh Adhikari as ministers, while Srijana Rai and Bandana Jhangad were appointed ministers of state.
After the Maoist Centre withdrew from the government, Karki appointed Bhupendra Rai, Khagen Singh Hangam and Sadananda Mandal as ministers, and Bhumi Prasad Rajbanshi as a minister of state.
Later, Leelaballabh Adhikari resigned after being implicated in a human trafficking case. Following his resignation, Rewati Raman Bhandari joined Karki’s Cabinet.
In the latest Cabinet reshuffle on Tuesday, Pradip Kumar Sunuwar, Man Bahadur Limbu, Israel Mansuri and Bhim Parajuli joined Karki’s Cabinet as ministers, while Shobha Chemjong was appointed minister of state. Karki also appointed his party colleagues Bidur Lingthep, Chintan Pathak, Indra Mani Parajuli and Ram Kumar Mehta as ministers, and Umakanta Gautam as a minister of state.
Altogether, 29 Koshi lawmakers served as ministers during Karki’s three tenures as chief minister alone.
Uddhav Thapa, who led the province after Karki’s first term, appointed Pradip Kumar Sunuwar, Ram Kumar Khatri, Jeevan Acharya, Rajendra Karki, Kamal Jubegu and Nirmala Limbu to his Cabinet. In his second term, he reappointed Sunuwar, Jubegu, Acharya, Karki, and Limbu, and also appointed former Speaker Baburam Gautam as minister, and Gayananda Mandal as minister of state.
Kedar Karki, who was elected chief minister with the support of the CPN-UML, initially appointed Shamsher Rai and Ram Kumar Rana as ministers.
However, the UML later exited his Cabinet after he inducted ministers from the Maoist Centre and the CPN (Unified Socialist).
Karki later appointed Pradip Kumar Sunuwar, Rajendra Karki, Shamsher Rai, Ganesh Upreti, Ganesh Prasad Jubegu, Ram Kumar Khatri, and Narayan Burja Magar as ministers, and Indira Thapa and Sunita Kumari Gurung as ministers of state.
