NEW DELHI, Oct 15: In what is seen as softening of its ties with India, the Nepal prime minister KP Sharma Oli has taken away defence portfolio from his deputy prime minister Ishwar Pokhrel in a mini cabinet reshuffle on Wednesday. Pokhrel will remain a member of the Oil cabinet as a minister without portfolio.
Oli will keep the defence ministry with himself. The decision is viewed to have been timed just ahead of the Indian Army Chief General MM Naravane scheduled visit to Nepal on November 3 when Nepal President Bidhya Devi Bhandari will confer the rank of the Honorary General of the Nepal Army on Gen Naravane as part of the 70-year-old reciprocal arrangement, a tradition that has been happening between the two armies since 1950.
In January, 2019 Nepal Army Chief Gen Thapa was conferred the honorary rank of general of the Indian army.
As a Defence Minister, Ishwar Pokhrel had been one of India’s sharpest critics in Oli’s cabinet even taking on Army Chief General Purna Chandra Thapa. In May Pokhrel reacting to a statement of Gen Narvane’s suggestion that Nepal might be raising the issue of Indian road construction via Lipulekh to Mansarovar at the “behest of someone else,” had stated “insulting… ignoring Nepal’s history, our social characteristics and freedom.”
The Nepal Army spokesperson Brigadier General Santosh Poudel in a statement on Wednesday said the Indian Army chief “will visit Nepal in November this year.” The visit, “approved by the Government of Nepal” on February 3 “was postponed due to lockdown in both the countries.”
(Venkatesh Iyer)