The Parliamentary Hearing Special Committee (PHSC) on Sunday endorsed Deep Kumar Upadhyay and Leela Mani Paudyal as Nepal’s ambassadors to India and China respectively. The committee also endorsed the appointment of Ram Prasad Sitaula as a member of the Judicial Council.

The endorsement of Upadhyay and Paudyal

came four days after their hearing. Though Paudyal’s nomination was approved unanimously, the opposition parties were against Upadhyay. The main opposition CPN-UML and the Rastriya Prajatantra Party-Nepal (RPP-N), the fourth largest party in Parliament, voted against Upadhyay who was recalled from India by the KP Sharma Oli-led government. On September 1, the present government had recommended the two for the ambassadorial positions.

But Upadhyay’s nomination was endorsed by a simple majority: nine out of 14

members in the committee voted for him. A two-thirds majority is required to reject a nomination.

Upadhyay, appointed by the Sushil Koirala-led government in April 2015, was recalled by the Oli government in May on the charge of conspiring against the government. “It was illogical to recommend same person [Upadhyay] twice,” said RPP-N Chief Whip Dilnath Giri.

This is the first case after the second Constituent Assembly election that the PHSC was divided over the choice of nominee for a constitutional position. Chairman of the PHSC Kul Bahadur Gurung had deferred the endorsement for four days to forge a consensus among the parties on both the nominees, which however, did not materialise.

Three complaints were filed at the PHSC against Upadhyay and one against Paudyal. During the hearing, opposition lawmakers grilled Upadhyay with pointed questions over his “suspicious behaviour” in traveling with Indian Ambassador to Nepal Ranjit Rae in Nepal’s Farwest without informing the Foreign Ministry.

The opposition, however, voted in favour of Situala who was recommended as a

council member by Sushil Koirala government. His nomination had previously been withdrawn by the Oli government, arguing that the PHSC was dysfunctional in the absence of new parliamentary regulations.