Koshi Province Chief Minister Hikmat Karki has blocked Internal Affairs and Law Minister Indramani Parajuli, who was involved in a campaign to remove him from office, from making Cabinet decisions public.
The Koshi Cabinet had appointed Minister Parajuli as the government spokesperson on January 8. Since then, he used to brief journalists on the decisions of Cabinet meetings.
However, the decisions of the Koshi Cabinet meeting were made public on Friday by Economic Affairs and Planning Minister Bidur Lingthep.
Minister Parajuli, along with Water Supply and Irrigation Minister Tilchan (Chintan) Pathak, had been working to implement CPN-UML Chairman KP Sharma Oli’s plan to remove Chief Minister Karki.
Angered by this, the chief minister on Friday directed Economic Affairs Minister Lingthep to announce the Cabinet’s decisions on Friday.
“Decisions were always made public by the spokesperson, but today the chief minister asked the economic minister to make them public,” a Cabinet source said.
Ministers Parajuli and Pathak, who had been campaigning to replace Karki with Til Kumar Menyangbo as chief minister, arrived at the end of Friday’s Cabinet meeting.
After learning that a majority of UML lawmakers in Koshi province supported Karki, Oli reportedly decided to retain him as chief minister.
Karki returned to Biratnagar from Kathmandu only on Thursday and convened a Cabinet meeting on Friday.
The Cabinet meeting decided to seek the consultation of the Provincial Public Service Commission regarding the Local Government Service Formation and Operation Regulations.
Minister Lingthep said that the decision to seek the commission’s consultation was taken as the process of formulating the regulations is underway.
The meeting also decided to appoint Anita Guragain, a resident of Itahari Sub-metropolitan City-4, as executive director of the Provincial Research and Training Academy in Kalbalgudi, Jhapa, and to approve the recommendation of the municipal assembly to shift the administrative center of Sundarharaicha Municipality in Morang from the current Ward No. 12 to Ward No. 8.
Lingthep further said that the meeting granted in-principle approval to the concept paper prepared for drafting a bill related to the Provincial Youth Council, and decided to repeal the Growth-oriented Implementation Procedure and Employment Promotion Program Implementation Procedure, 2026.
