Prime Minister Balendra Shah has recommended Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) lawmaker Deepak Kumar Sah to become the new Minister for Industry, Commerce and Supplies, with the nomination forwarded to President Ramchandra Paudel on Thursday, hours after outgoing minister Gauri Kumari Yadav resigned.
Sah represents the Sunsari-4 constituency in the House of Representatives, having defeated Nepali Congress leader Gyanendra Bahadur Karki in the March 5 general election. According to online news portals, he is considered close to both Prime Minister Shah and RSP leader Amresh Kumar Singh, and party sources say Shah played a role in bringing him into the RSP. A swearing-in ceremony was scheduled for Thursday, according to Radio Nepal's public broadcasting service, which cited the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers.
Sah takes over a portfolio that has now changed hands three times since Shah's government formed on March 27: Shah himself briefly held the ministry before handing it to Yadav on April 10, and Yadav resigned Thursday following backlash over remarks she made a day earlier calling for the licenses of Nepal's 58 gas companies to be annulled amid an ongoing Kathmandu Valley cooking-gas shortage.
News media reporting on Sah's recommendation, described Yadav as having faced "significant criticism regarding her performance," saying she had been "specifically scrutinized for failing to manage the supply of cooking gas in the market and for making controversial public statements."
