Kathmandu : Even 51 days after the formation of the government, Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba is in no hurry to expand the cabinet. A personal aide to Deuba told NepalPage that he was thinking of prolonging the cabinet expansion as Deuba could not balance the factions within his own party. Deuba had suddenly raised the issue of MCC while discussing the distribution of ministries at a meeting of the ruling party convened in Baluwatar on Tuesday, which was discussed as the last day of cabinet expansion.

After Prime Minister Deuba proposed to convene a meeting of the House of Representatives and ratify the agreement with the US, Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), Madhav Nepal, chairman of the CPN ( Unified Socialists) Maoist  chairman Prachanda, was surprised.

According to sources, Prachanda and Nepal’s emphasis was on expanding the cabianet first and then discussing other agreements and bills, including the budget. Prachanda and Nepal have understood that Deuba’s intentions were not right, even though Deuba’s feared that it would lose international trust if it did not ratify  MCC agreement.

Prachanda and Nepal had the same view that a rift would arise between the ruling coalition parties when they tried to move ahead without a broad discussion and consensus on the agreement. In the past, JSP leaders, who had sided with the MCC, remained silent on Deuba’s contingency resolution on Tuesday. In the past, the MCC was also a major controversy within the then CPN The then Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli was in favor of the MCC. But the majority of leaders including Prachanda, Madhav Nepal and Jhala Nath Khanal were in opposition.

After the meeting, Chairman Prachanda discussed with his close associates about Deuba’s intentions.
After the registration of the Unified Socialists under the leadership of Nepal, Deuba is now planning to convene a meeting of the House of Representatives soon and move forward the ordinances including the MCC. A high-ranking official said that he had instructed Law Minister Gyanendra Bahadur Karki to prepare a proposal for that. ‘

Desire for everything from improving relations with Oli to cooperation

Prime Minister Deuba has put forward Minister Gyanendra Bahadur Karki, who has family ties with President Vidyadevi Bhandari, to improve relations with UML leader KP Sharma Oli. Although KP Oli seems to be outraged that the UML has split by bringing an ordinance on political parties, this is only his outward appearance. In fact, it was Oli who wanted Madhav Nepal to form a separate party.

According to a source, Deuba had sent Karki, Deuba’s special confidante, to talk to Oli on the pretext that he would be embarrassed to run the parliament without the support of UML, the largest party in the parliament.

Leaders close to Deuba have been saying that he has been under a lot of external pressure since he became the Prime Minister recently.
It is said that the expansion of the cabinet has been delayed till September 8 as per the request of Upendra Yadav. Yadav wants to get more and more people’s representatives in his favor by stopping the expansion of the cabinet till the deadline for the elected people’s representatives at the province and local levels to chose the party within three weeks of the party split.

In Yadav’s party, if four MPs are on one side, the other party will be formed.
In any case, Yadav’s party is certain to split sooner or later.
On the other hand, Oli also wants to take revenge by increasing relations with Deuba and somehow ousting Prachanda and Nepal from power before the upcoming election. The fear of reaching Deuba with the help of external forces is seen in Prachanda and Nepal at this time.