Kathmandu, August 19
The Nepali Congress will send more ministers from the party fold to the Prachanda-led government only after Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister Bimalendra Nidhi returns home from India.
DPM and NC leader Nidhi, who left for India on Thursday in the capacity of PM Prachanda’s special emissary, is returning to Nepal on Monday evening.
A leader close to NC President Sher Bahadur Deuba said the party is yet to prepare the list of ministers.
Deuba has entrusted Nidhi with the task of holding talks with NC leader Ram Chandra Poudel, who represents a rival camp in the party, for the selection of ministers. Before leaving for India, Nidhi had held talks on the matter with Poudel, but they could not come to an understanding.
The Poudel camp has been demanding 40 per cent of total ministerial berths that the Congress will get. But Deuba is against giving the camp more than four ministries.
With too many aspirants for ministerial berths in his camp, Deuba has been unable to finalise the names for the positions.
A Congress leader said: Party President will hold talks with leaders. He will hold talks with Nidhi also once he returns home, and finalise the names for ministerial positions.
The leader said the next Cabinet expansion is possible only on coming Tuesday. Before this, NC had been pointing that it has not been able to send more ministers from his party to the Cabinet because of the 11th general convention of its sister organisation, Nepal Students’ Union.
The convention has ended, but it will take NC some more time to prepare the list of ministers and send it to Prachanda.
