Minister for Industry, Commerce and Supplies Gauri Kumari Yadav resigned on Thursday, a day after remarks targeting cooking gas bottlers drew a formal complaint from business representatives to Prime Minister Balendra Shah.
Yadav submitted her resignation to Shah on Thursday, her secretariat said, without giving a public reason. She becomes the third minister to leave Shah's cabinet since it was formed on March 27, following the dismissal of then-Labour Minister Deepak Kumar Sah on April 9 on his own party's recommendation, and the resignation of then-Home Minister Sudan Gurung on April 22 over questions about his personal finances.
The immediate trigger was a parliamentary committee meeting on Wednesday, where Yadav, amid an ongoing liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) shortage in the Kathmandu Valley, called for the licenses of all 58 gas companies operating in Nepal to be annulled and said she would "tie gas businessmen's hands behind their backs," accusing dealers of creating an artificial shortage and defying the government, according to Nepal News and multiple wire reports. Representatives from the gas and business sector lodged a formal complaint against her with the prime minister's office in response, which Nepal News reported led directly to her departure.
Yadav's ministry oversees industrial licensing, trade policy and the supply chains — including cooking gas — that have been under strain amid the valley-wide LPG shortage. It was not immediately clear who would take over the portfolio; Prime Minister Shah has taken charge of vacated ministries himself in the past, including the Home Ministry after Gurung's April resignation.
