Defence, home ministers in self-quarantine

KATHMANDU, AUGUST 28

The ruling Nepal Communist Party (NCP) postponed its Secretariat meeting scheduled for tomorrow till September 3, as two of the Secretariat members had to go into self-quarantine.

This combo image shows Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Ishwar Pokharel (left) and Home Minister Ram Bahadur Thapa. Photo: THT

Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli’s Press Adviser Surya Thapa said the meeting was postponed as two Secretariat members — Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Ishwar Pokharel and Home Minister Ram Bahadur Thapa — had to quarantine themselves after an employee at COVID-19 Crisis Management Centre tested positive for COVID-19. CCMC is led by Pokharel, while Thapa is one of its members.

The next Secretariat meeting is scheduled to discuss the report submitted by the party’s six-member task force led by party General Secretary Bishnu Prasad Paudel.

The task force had recently submitted an 18-page report suggesting that Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli should be allowed to hold the post of prime minister till the tenure of the current House of Representatives ends and that of party co-chair till the party’s unity convention.

The task force also suggested that NCP Co-chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal should be given executive power to run party affairs.

Oli and Dahal had formed the task force after the majority of the party’s Standing Committee members had asked Oli to quit either the post of PM or party co-chair. Oli had refused to quit any post.

A version of this article appears in e-paper on August 29, 2020, of The Himalayan Times.

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