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Foreign Minister Arzu Rana Deuba has said that her recent official visit to India has played a significant role towards contributing to enhance the mutual goodwill as well as to the promotion of cooperation and collaboration between the two countries.

Minister Rana was briefing about her India visit in a meeting of the Parliament's International Relations and Tourism Committee held at Singha Durbar today. She expressed the confidence that the visit contributed to further strengthening the friendly, cooperative, multi-faceted and close relations subsisting between the two countries on the basis of mutual equality and benefit.

Apart from this, the visit also provided a guideline to expand contact at high level and various levels as well as to promote cooperation and collaboration for mutual benefit through the bilateral mechanism also.

Responding to lawmakers' queries, the Minister for Foreign Affairs stated that the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has given a positive response to an invitation for him to visit Nepal. Stating that she had undertaken an official visit to India from August 18-22 and on the occasion also paid a courtesy call on the Indian Prime Minister.

"On behalf of Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli, I conveyed warm greetings and best wishes to the Indian Prime Minister and also formally handed to him an invitation that PM Oli had extended to him for a state visit to Nepal," she said, adding that the Indian PM happily acknowledged the invitation and gave a positive response for a visit to Nepal.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Rana had visited India at the invitation of Minister for External Affairs of India, S Jaishankar. She held a courtesy meeting with the Indian PM in New Delhi on August 19.

According to her, on the occasion discussions were held on further consolidating the friendly ties subsisting between Nepal and India and on expanding the existing collaboration on matters of mutual benefit.

Foreign Minister Rana said the bilateral meeting she had with her Indian counterpart at Hyderabad House in New Delhi earlier the same day remained significant. On the occasion, the two Foreign Ministers had discussed expanding cooperation in trade and transit, increasing the quantity of electricity exported to India from Nepal, extending the cross-border connectivity and promoting Indian investment in Nepal.

Also, she said that talks were held to take forward necessary discussions for granting more air routes to Nepal, for mobilization of related mechanisms for resolving the problems of flooding and inundation and taking ahead the Pancheshwar Multi-purpose Project on priority basis.

Foreign Minister Rana said talks were held on overall topics of Nepal-India relations, including cooperation in sports sector, capacity enhancement of sportspersons and construction of a cricket stadium at Phapla of Dhangadhi as well as on construction and expansion of border infrastructures.

It is stated that besides this agreement was reached on giving continuity to contacts at various levels on several topics through the existing bilateral mechanism.

The Foreign Affairs Minister said that she specifically brought up the topic of air route and an agreement has been reached in principle for the technical committee to hold the necessary discussions on this matter.

Noting that the government has been conducting the country's international relations and diplomacy as per Nepal's foreign policy focusing on protecting and promoting the national interest, she asserted that Nepal is being represented in the international forums ensuring Nepal's interest as specified by the Constitution and the foreign policy.

Minister Rana reiterated that the present government is committed to mobilizing Nepal's foreign-based diplomatic missions, the mission chiefs taking the supreme interest of the nation into account. 

She assured that this government shall make maximum efforts to make the appointment of ambassadors more systematized, dignified, transparent and capacity and performance-based on the main basis of the spirit of the constitution and the guidelines on appointment of ambassadors.

Foreign Minister Rana stated that the policy of appointing at least 50 per cent ambassadors from the Foreign Service has been continued this time as well for maintaining balance between political appointment and appointment from the career diplomats.

She also informed the Committee that preparations were being made for signing four important agreements with Oman on tourism, health, labor and foreign affairs.

Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli has asserted that the national aspiration of 'Prosperous Nepal, Happy Nepali' would be fulfilled by embracing the fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution and the national and international commitments on human rights. 

Inaugurating the three-day international conference of human rights institutions of Asia and Pacific region on gender inclusiveness organized by the National Human Rights Commission today, PM Oli pointed out that the Constitution of Nepal has enshrined many issues of fundamental rights and the government is committed to abide by that in letter and spirit.

He made it clear that the caste system has been abolished through law. Stating that the Parliament had guaranteed at least 33 percent women participation in all the bodies of the three tiers of the State before the drafting of the Constitution, the PM described it as an important achievement. 

Prime Minister Oli also presented the instance in which the nation had got the first woman President, the Chief Justice, the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the Chief Secretary, adding that necessary facilitation is done in increasing the women participation in all the State bodies.

He viewed that 20 percent of the citizens in Nepal are still under the absolute poverty line and it would not be possible to empower all the citizens unless fulfilling the poverty alleviation goal. 

"We will fully implement the letter and spirit of the fundamental rights mentioned in the constitution. We are committed to the execution of international commitments and agreements. We will abolish poverty from Nepal. We will fulfill the goal of Prosperous Nepal, Happy Nepali," PM Oli reiterated.

He shared on the occasion that the government and the Human Rights Commission were working in tandem for achieving the common goal of social justice and equality, as the people could not be made happy until the country is made prosperous.

"Only prosperity does not work for the country's development. The people should be able to experience a dignified life along with peace, safety and rights. The government is working for that," Prime Minister Oli said.

Home Minister Ramesh Lekhak has said that the first and second largest parties of the country normally do not join hands to form a coalition government. 

At a news conference organized by Press Union Kailali at Dhangadhi Airport today, Home Minister Lekhak mentioned that the CPN-UML and Nepali Congress have formed a government together during a special situation.

He shared, "Generally in parliamentary practice, the first and second largest parties of the country do not form a government together. We form the government during the special situation."

In the history, the country has achieved promising results when the both parties headed together, underlined the Home Minister, adding, "If there were important agendas in the country, we had jointly addressed the important agendas of the country." 

Stating that a stable equation had to be created for a stable government, Home Minister Lekhak stressed that the new equation was formed to make the economy dynamic, to establish good governance, to accelerate development construction activities and to establish rule of law in the country.

"We two parties jointly made the Constitution. The NC brought communists together to fight against the Panchayat system and multi-party democracy was established. The two parties stand together to transform the 10-year armed conflict into peace," added the Home Minister. 

For a long time, Nepali Congress (NC) General Secretaries Gagan Kumar Thapa and Bishwa Prakash Sharma have been pressuring the party leadership to take a clear stance against forming any pre-election alliances, like the one with the Maoists in the 2022 elections.

Thapa and Sharma are essentially trying to address concerns among grassroots cadres who are reluctant to support the Maoist party due to lingering animosities from the insurgency era. During the 10-year insurgency, Maoist cadres targeted NC members, killing many, seizing their properties, and expelling them from their homes.

As a result, many NC cadres at the local level are unwilling to vote for the Maoists, preferring instead to support a royalist party like the Rastriya Prajatantra Party. This resistance contributed to the poor conversion of NC votes into support for Maoist candidates, not only in parliamentary elections but also in the National Assembly elections. With Friday’s decision by the NC, it seems Thapa and Sharma have partially succeeded in advancing their position, although the decision does not explicitly rule out future electoral alliances.

“We will re-establish the Nepali Congress as a party capable of securing a majority on its own by further energizing our organization and increasing public trust and support,” reads the party’s decision. However, it does not prevent the party leadership from making last-minute decisions regarding electoral alliances. Although Thapa and Sharma believe the party can emerge as the largest without an alliance, the party’s organizational strength has significantly weakened in recent years due to inaction.

The NC is plagued by faction feuds from the central to grassroots levels, and little effort has been made to revitalize the party organization. The party’s main competitor, CPN-UML, is known for its robust organizational strength and has been launching a series of organizational campaigns even after the 2022 elections. Despite the alliance between the NC and the Maoists in 2022, the UML managed to secure an equal number of popular votes as the NC. It will be challenging for the NC to compete with the UML in many constituencies, especially as some NC cadres and leaders are gradually shifting to new parties. 

A senior NC leader commented, “We are in a difficult situation because grassroots sentiment is against the alliance, but our organization is weak, and we cannot rule out the possibility of all communist parties uniting.” This is why NC President Sher Bahadur Deuba appears hesitant to make a decisive move, leading the party’s Central Committee meeting to adopt a somewhat ambiguous decision.

The party’s Central Working Committee (CWC) approved a proposal that Thapa had presented during the meeting of the Mahasamiti, the party’s highest policy-decision making body, in February. However, the Mahasamiti was unable to decide on the proposal at the time due to opposition from Deuba. The Mahasamiti then decided to discuss the proposal in the central working committee meeting.

Deuba had instructed Thapa to revise the proposal, arguing that forming alliances is a strategic decision made before the election and not something to be publicly declared. However, Thapa refused to revise the proposal.

Political analysts suggest that Thapa’s proposal was one of the factors that led CPN (Maoist Center) Chairperson Pushpa Kamal Dahal to break alliance with the NC and form a new coalition with the UML in March. However, Dahal’s new coalition was short-lived, as the NC and UML announced a new coalition on July 1.

While the CWC meeting was ongoing, Deuba held a separate meeting with Vice Presidents Purna Bahadur Khadka and Dhanraj Gurung; General Secretaries Thapa and Sharma; and CWC member Ramesh Lekhak to forge a consensus on three proposals submitted by Khadka, Thapa, and Sharma. These meetings, held on Tuesday and Thursday, reached a consensus, and a framework was laid out for decisions that were eventually adopted by the CWC.

Although the party approved the proposals submitted by Khadka and Thapa, it did not pass Sharma’s proposal related to term limits. Sharma had proposed limiting leaders to one term as President, two terms as Prime Minister, three terms as Minister, and four terms as a Member of Parliament. For provinces, Sharma proposed that a leader could not serve more than two terms as Chief Minister, three terms as Minister, and four terms as a Provincial Assembly Member.

Leaders close to Deuba opposed this proposal, arguing that it was designed to prevent Deuba from becoming Prime Minister again. “I won’t rule myself out of the premiership just because you suggest it. I am not ready to give up the position yet,” Deuba reportedly said during the meeting.

The meeting decided that necessary decisions regarding term limits for various positions would be made during the constitutional amendment process. Although the meeting agreed to hold the upcoming general convention within the stipulated time frame, it did not set a specific date.