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The CPN (Unified Socialist) submitted the names of its new ministers to Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba.

A Secretariat meeting held on Sunday recalled the ministers representing the party in the Deuba-led government and recommended the new names.

According to a leader, party Chairman Madhav Nepal submitted the list of the names to Prime Minister Deuba this afternoon.

Here is the list of new ministers: 

1. Metmani Chaudhary- Ministry of Urban Development 

2. Bhawani Khapung- Ministry of Health and Population 

3. Jeevan Ram Shrestha- Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation 

4. Sher Bahadur Kunwar- Ministry of Employment and Social Security

5. Hira Chandra KC- State Minister for Health

The party has recalled Ram Kumari Jhankri, Birodh Khatiwada, Kishan Shrestha and Prem Ale from the government.

President Bidya Devi Bhandari will administer the oath of office and secrecy to the ministers at Sheetal Niwas tomorrow.

The Madhesh province government is going to present its policies and programs of the coming fiscal year 2022/23 in the provincial assembly meeting today.

Chief of the Province Harishankar Mishra is scheduled to present the policies and programs of the provincial government for the new fiscal year in the meeting of the provincial assembly to be held at 4:00 pm today, said Ranjit Kumar Yadav, secretary of the provincial assembly secretariat.

In the policies  and programs, priority has been given to agriculture, education, health and other programs. A meeting of the Council of Ministers of the Madhes province government held on Saturday had approved the policy and program for the coming fiscal year 2022/23 to be presented in the provincial assembly meeting.

Similarly, the Madhes province government will present the budget for the fiscal year 2022/23 in the forthcoming provincial assembly meeting on June 15, according to Minister for Home and Communications Bharat Prasad Shah.

Nepali Congress, the leader of the five-party ruling coalition, seems to be in a mood for early elections. That should also suit CPN-UML, the main opposition, just fine. Although UML lost 89 top local level seats compared to its tally after the 2017 elections, the party in fact made a gain of 3.66m votes in all contested seats. Nepali Congress, for its part, got around 850,000 fewer votes than the UML. Had the five parties not ‘ganged up’ against it, UML could have trounced any individually contesting party, the party top-brass believes.

It is also hoping to prise away Maoist Center and Unified Socialist, the two communist coalition partners, from Nepali Congress before the upcoming federal and provincial elections. Upendra Yadav’s Janata Samajbadi Party might also be game for a rupture with Congress. Many top leaders of these three parties feel the Congress ‘betrayed’ them in local polls: even in joint tickets, while Congress won the top seats, they didn’t win the deputy seats as Congressis didn’t vote for them.

For the next few weeks the parties will be busy breaking down the results of local elections to chart a way forward. Sher Bahadur Deuba will have his work cut out keeping the coalition intact. 

Full story here.

Finance Minister Janardan Sharma said that the budget presented for the next fiscal year 2022/23 is not ambitious.

Reponding to the questions raised by the lawmakers on the budget in the Parliament, Minister Sharma said that the budget is not ambitious but based on reality.

"The budget sees the private sector as the engine of economic growth," he said, adding, "The budget has stressed on agricultural production."

He further said that the budget has given top priority to domestic production. 

Minister Sharma went on to say that the budget is trying to resolve the problems by increasing the production.