Nepal’s Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ is set to visit India in the last week of March. Foreign Secretary of India Vinay Kwatra, who will be on an official visit to Nepal from 13-14 February, is expected to handover a formal Invite from PM Modi to the Nepalese Prime Minister.
The foreign secretary’s Nepal visit is his first stand-alone visit since he assumed office in May last year. However, he had served as the Indian Envoy in Kathmandu before he was elevated to the post of foreign secretary in Delhi.
In an exclusive interaction, a diplomatic source told CNN-News18 that a President’s election is on in Nepal right now and “immediately after that the Nepalese PM’s India visit could happen.”
The presidential election in Nepal is due to be held on March 9 to elect the third president of the country. The current President Bidya Devi Bhandari will retire on March 13. The presidential election will be followed by the election of vice president on March 17, a day before incumbent Nanda Bahadur Pun retires.
During his Delhi visit Prachanda, will participate in a bilateral meeting with PM Modi and call on President Murmu at the President’s House.
He will also have separate meetings with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and national security advisor Ajit Doval. He is likely to have engagements with the business community and policy think tanks during his Delhi visit.
Foreign Secretary Kwatra will meet his counterpart Bharat Raj Paudyal during his Kathmandu visit. Both officials are likely to finetune the important bilateral issues which could be tabled during the Prachanda-Modi bilateral talk in Delhi.
Since swearing in as the Prime minister of Nepal for the third time in December last year, Prachanda has expressed a keenness on making India the destination of his first official foreign visit.
Prachanda has earlier served as the Prime Minister of Nepal from 2008 to 2009 and again from 2016 to 2017.
The presidential election in Nepal will be politically important for Prachanda to demonstrate his strength. The election, which is conducted through an electoral college consisting of members of both houses of the parliament and all seven provincial assemblies, is seen as a direct fight between the incumbent PM Prachanda and former PM K P Sharma Oli, both pushing for their favourite candidate for the post. If Oli succeeds in getting his candidate elected, it will raise a big question mark on the stability and longevity of Prachanda’s seven-party coalition government.
Nepal is eying more investments from India in Nepal in sectors such hydroelectricity, hospitality, education, health, manufacturing. Kolkata’s Haldia port has been a traditional gateway for its trade with other countries. The port in Visakhapatnam has become an additional point of trade in recent years.
However, Nepal is now also looking for alternative ports to get more access to the western markets. “Nepal is also looking at Mundra port in Gujarat on western coast and Dhamra port in Odisha on the eastern coast to connect its trade with the rest of the world.”, said the source.
Preceding the Nepalese PM’s visit, Minister for Defense of Nepal Hari Prasad Upreti will embark on a five-day visit to India beginning the next week. He will visit India at the invitation of his Indian counterpart Rajnath Singh on February 13. During his visit, Upreti will be in Bengaluru from 13-15 February and attend Aero India 2023.
PM Modi had paid an official visit to Gautam Buddha’s birthplace in Lumbini, Nepal in May last year coinciding with the auspicious occasion of Buddha Purnima, at the invitation of the then-Prime Minister of Nepal Sher Bahadur Deuba. His visit was preceded by Prime Minister Deuba’s Delhi and Varanasi visit in April 2022.
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