Nepal inducts 13 Leftist ministers

KATHMANDU, Aug 26 (PTI) — Nepalese Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala today inducted 13 Leftist ministers into his Cabinet in a reshuffle to form a coalition government.
In a bid to end uncertainty plaguing his four-month-old minority government, Mr Koirala, a known anti-communist, inducted 13 MPs from the Nepal Communist Party (Marxist and Leninist) into his Cabinet, the state-run radio said.
The radio said the expanded Cabinet now includes 21 ministers, four state ministers and seven assistant ministers from both Koirala’s Nepali Congress Party and NCP-ML. Koirala, 73, who has headed a minority government since April, dropped 12 members of his own party from the ministry.
Koirala named NCP-ML’s Radha Krishan Mainali as Minister for Information and Communications in place of Nepali Congress’s Mahanta Thakur, who was dismissed.
The Prime Minister, however, kept for himself the key portfolios of Defence, Foreign and Royal Palace Affairs, the statement said. The Ruling Nepali Congress which is the largest single party with a strength of 88 seats in the 205-member Lower House of Parliament, has 19 members in the new Cabinet.