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Soon after the Nepali Congress emerged as the largest party in the House of Representative, the party leaders started staking claim for the posts of president and prime minister. This opinion was not limited to NC President Sher Bahadur Deuba and his coterie. Deuba’s rival leaders Shekhar Koirala and Gagan Thapa also joined the chorus.  

As the largest party, the NC leaders were of the view that the party was the bona fide contender to run Sheetal Niwas and Baluwatar. This didn’t go down well with the CPN (Maoist Center), NC’s election ally and pre-election coalition partner.

Before the Nov 20 elections, Deuba had agreed to hand over the prime ministerial post to Maoist Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal. After seeing that Deuba was planning to renege on the deal, Dahal mobilized some of his party leaders for power-sharing talks with the CPN-UML. Deuba and his supporters were confident that Maoist party would never partner with UML, given the bad blood between Dahal and UML chair KP Oli.

Even when Dahal walked out of the power-sharing meeting with the NC, Deuba and his supporters were hoping the former to return. The NC leaders were stunned when they learned that Dahal and Oli had agreed to a power-sharing deal. Aghast, Deuba immediately called Dahal and tried to offer the premiership, but the latter replied that it was already too late.  The NC, which holds 89 seats in the HoR, suddenly found itself relegated to the opposition benches.

The Maoist and UML cobbled together a seven-party alliance. This same alliance is likely to form governments in provinces as well, rendering NC powerless.   

Now, Deuba is under heavy pressure from the party rank and file. There have been calls for his resignation. To neutralize the dissenting voices, he has called for the party’s Central Working Committee (CWC) meeting. But NC leader Guru Raj Ghimire says the damage has already been done. “Nepali Congress cannot recover from this loss for another 10-15 years,” he says. “The party president must resign for this blunder.” Ghimire fears the three communist forces—UML, Maoist and CPN (Unified Socialist)—could merge to become the single largest party. It is not just the leftist parties coming together that the NC needs to worry about.

Right of center parties like the newly formed Rastriya Swatantra Party is also gaining ground. Ghimire admits it is going to be tough for the NC in the next election. “Besides President Deuba, other senior office-bearers should also take the blame for what happened,” he says. As the party prepares for its CWC meeting, the rival faction led by Koirala is planning to make a strong case against Deuba’s leadership. The group met on Wednesday to discuss the agenda for the meeting, where they concluded that the debacle was caused by some leaders’ lust for power.  

Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) is to issue repo worth Rs 50 billion for managing the liquidity in bank and financial institutions. The Central Bank is issuing the repo for liquidity management as a large amount of money would go out from the banking system in the form of revenue upon payment of the first installment of the income tax on January 14. NRB is auctioning the repo today. The repo is being issued for a total 45 days. The Category A, B and C banks and financial institutions can participate in the bidding process. The repo will mature on February 12, according to the NRB.  

The government and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) on Tuesday signed a concessional loan agreement amounting to $200m (equivalent to Rs 26.51bn) for supporting the first five years of the School Education Sector Plan (2022–2030) and a Grant Agreement of USD 12 million to implement the Strengthening Systems to Protect and Uplift Women Project. The Ministry of Finance in a press statement said that the project will benefit survivors of gender-based violence (GBV) across Madhesh, Lumbini, and Sudurpaschchim provinces through the establishment of long-term rehabilitation centers, development of survivor-friendly facilities for the women, children and senior citizen service centers within selected district and area police offices and strengthening of survivor-friendly services in these provinces. The project will also build a new national long-term rehabilitation center in Bhaktapur. Joint Secretary of MoF, Ishwori Prasad Aryal, and Saugata Dasgupta, ADB Officer-in-Charge for Nepal signed the agreement papers. The proposed assistance will support the implementation of the government’s School Education Sector Plan in a sector-wide approach supported by eight development partners, including ADB under the Joint Financing Arrangement. “The program will enhance learning provisions for basic and secondary schools; strengthen teaching and learning skills in schools; accelerate the recovery from learning losses caused by the Covid-19 pandemic; and improve the capacity of local governments in education planning, monitoring and reporting,” reads the statement. Speaking on the occasion, Aryal said that Nepal has achieved significant progress in terms of improving access to education in the past decades. "However, much more needs to be done to further improve equity of access and the quality of education," he mentioned. According to him, the program will be crucial to operationalize Nepal’s holistic approach to improving overall learning outcomes. “This agreement is a key part of ADB’s overall efforts to help Nepal accelerate reforms and transform the country’s education system to develop human capital, reduce social inequity, and attain sustainable growth. The plan is designed towards eliminating inequities in access and participation in school education, and improving quality and resilience of school education,” the statement quoted Dasgupta as saying.

The National Planning Commission (NPC) has reduced the role of the Ministry of Forest and Environment in determining whether specific projects fall under the national priority project. As per the new Standard on Determining National Priority Projects 2022, NPC will be responsible for determining whether specific projects recommended by the provincial governments and local governments are national priority projects. A project that has its detailed project report (DPR) prepared, has secured a guarantee of resource availability and falls under the scope of the national priority as per the existing periodic plan, can be categorized as a national priority project. Likewise, additional criteria such as completion of environmental impact assessment (EIA) or initial environmental examination (IEE) and secretary-level decisions of categorizing the project as a national priority should also be fulfilled. A national priority development project receives approval to use the forest area and such a project can also conduct mining, process, and sell the mining materials. Both government and private sector projects can be categorized as national priority projects as per the set of standards. The NPC is the recommending body in the case of projects which has been categorized as National Priority Projects-1 or National Priority Projects-2 by the Medium Term Expenditure Framework, a three-yearly expenditure projection, and the Annual Development Program of the government. But NPC is responsible for determining the priority of local and provincial governments as national priority projects. As per the earlier standards, the NPC had little role in determining whether certain projects should be categorized as national priority projects. A senior NPC official said that the new set of standards has cut down the process of determining whether a certain project was a national priority. “It has reduced the compulsion of taking the file to an additional ministry,” the official said. In case of projects determined as a national priority by the Medium Term Expenditure Framework and the Annual Development Program, the NPC is responsible for notifying the line ministries about it only. And then, the ministries concerned should recommend that those projects are national priority projects to the Ministry of Forest and Environment which will do a needful to facilitate the development of such projects. For the prioritized projects of the provincial governments, the provincial cabinet and Office of the Chief Minister and Council of Ministers should decide and recommend for categorization as a national priority. A member of the NPC looks after it and makes necessary recommendations. Then, the planning body will determine whether the recommended project is a national priority project. As per the earlier provision, the provincial government should have recommended to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and the PMO would recommend to the Ministry of Forest and Environment for treating certain projects as national priority ones. Similarly, in case of the projects designated as 'local-level priority projects, the assembly meeting of the local governments should recommend to the Ministry of Federal Affairs and General Administration, and based on the further recommendation of the ministry, the NPC will decide on the matter. Under the previous arrangement, the federal affairs ministry used to recommend to the forest ministry for treating such projects as national priority ones. Likewise, regarding projects with a cost of over Rs 100 million to be operated by the NGOs or the community for social development, the decision of the local-level rural municipality executive is required. This should be forwarded to the federal affairs ministry and based on the recommendation of the ministry, the NPC will determine whether to enlist recommended projects as national priority ones. An industry categorized under the national priority list will get approval from the forest ministry to use the forest area based on the recommendation of the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supplies.