CPN-UML lawmaker Jwala Kumari Sah has become minister for the third time at the age of 41.
Sah, who was appointed agriculture minister for a few days by UML Chairman KP Sharma Oli in June 2021, had also become minister of state for around six months in 2010 in the then Maoist government led by Baburam Bhattarai.
Sah, who had joined the Maoist rebellion as a teenager had opted to join UML after the Supreme Court (SC) invalidated unification of UML with CPN (Maoist Center) to form the then ruling CPN in March 2021, was rewarded as agriculture minister by Oli for choosing his party.
She has again been picked by Oli as a minister in the coalition government led by Maoist Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal after being elected to the House of Representatives (HoR) from Bara-3.
Oli called her to inform that she has been picked minister while she was attending a party program in Bara on December 25, 2022. “Chairman KP Oli has a big contribution in making me minister…I didn’t know I was being picked as minister when I became agriculture minister earlier as well. Oli surprised me this time as well.”
She had received similar surprise even when she first became state minister in 2010. She was Constitutional Assembly (CA) member from Maoist Center elected through the Proportional Representation (PR) system then.
The then PM Bhattarai had called her while she was cutting paddy in her field. She and her husband then came to Kathmandu on a motorcycle travelling in the night but not in time to attend her swearing-in ceremony which was postponed for a few days. She became state minister at the Ministry of Land Reforms for around four and a half months and at the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation for around one and a half months.
She claims that she never made rounds of leaders urging them to make her minister. She adds that she has been appointed minister on all the occasions due to her competence, qualification and continuous hard work in the party.
She had joined the Maoist insurgency as a teenager in the mid-90s even though her father Yadu Sah Kanu and mother Sripati Devi Sah Kanu were affiliated with the then CPN-ML that merged with CPN-Marxist to form UML after restoration of democracy in 1990. Her mother was pregnant with her when she was in the Birgunj Jail during the peasants’ movement in 1981.
“I was under pressure from my family to join politics only after completing my study as my parents were active in politics. But I was secretly involved in Maoist politics,” she tells Setopati. “I went underground after I was exposed. I went underground in 1998 thinking I will either be martyred or do something for the country if I stay alive.”
She was married with fellow Maoist cadre Amrit Sharma Bajgai in 2004.
She recalls how she was taken to Motihari, India after complications in delivery in 2005. She adds that she returned to Nepal after travelling for two days sometimes by foot and on a rickshaw at other times after increased activities of security persons at the hospital where she delivered.
She now has three sons. Her husband Bajgai is now deputy secretary of UML for Bara.
She says she did not know UML leaders much even though her father was a zonal level leader of UML and adds that she has been inspired to join UML by Oli. She was elected to the provincial Assembly of the then Province 2 on a Maoist ticket in 2017. “I joined UML risking the post of provincial lawmaker.”
She now has ironically joined the government led by the leader who inspired her to join the Maoist rebellion as a teenager. “One has to show performance. Who leads the government is not a big deal. It is important that the team becomes successful more than I becoming successful as an individual.”
