KATHMANDU: Nepal’s Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal is to reshuffle his government in the latest shakeup of alliances following a rift with his coalition partner, officials said on Monday.

Dahal’s Maoist Centre party is expected to push out the centrist Nepali Congress party and rebuild a leftwing coalition with its old ally, the Communist Party Nepal-Union Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML).

“The prime minister has informed the president on the restructuring of the cabinet,” Dahal’s press secretary Govinda Acharya said.

Dahal, 69, an ex-Maoist guerrilla better known by his nom de guerre Prachanda or “the fierce one”, leads the Maoist Centre party. It is the third largest party with 53 seats in the 275-member parliament, of which a government must command at least 138 seats.

The Maoists have dominated Nepal’s politics for more than 20 years after waging a decade-long insurgency against government forces that claimed more than 16,000 lives.

Published in Dawn, March 5th, 2024