They joined the government to oversee elections. They quit halfway to contest elections

Kathmandu: Education, Science, and Technology Minister Mahabir Pun resigned on Tuesday, becoming the fourth member of the Sushila Karki government to leave in order to contest the March 5 elections to the House of Representatives.

Finance Minister Rameshore Khanal shared the news on social media earlier in the day, and Pun later filed his candidacy from Myagdi.

The interim government under Karki, a former chief justice, was formed on September 12 following nationwide Gen Z protests on September 8-9 that led to the fall of the KP Sharma Oli government. Karki appointed individuals from various fields to her Cabinet to oversee the elections, but as the election day approached, four of them chose to contest the polls themselves.

The first to resign was Energy Minister Kulman Ghising. He has formed his own party, Ujyalo Nepal. He had briefly joined the Rastriya Swatantra Party but later decided to contest from his own party from Kathmandu-3. Communications and Information Minister Jagadish Kharel resigned on Sunday to contest from Lalitpur-2, and Sports Minister Bablu Gupta quit Monday to contest on an RSP ticket.

With these four resignations, the remaining Karki Cabinet ministers are: Khanal (Finance), Om Prakash Aryah (Home), Balananda Sharma (Foreign), Anil Sinha (Industry), and Madan Pariyar (Agriculture).

Elections are now 44 days away, with parties filing nominations on January 20 under the first-past-the-post system. 

Nepal’s 275-member House of Representatives is elected through 165 FPTP seats and 110 proportional representation seats.

Of the three former prime ministers, Nepali Congress’s Sher Bahadur Deuba, 79, recently ousted as party president, has opted out of the race, while KP Sharma Oli, 73, and Pushpa Kamal Dahal, 71, are running.

Oli will contest from Jhapa-5, where he won in the last elections, and Dahal has shifted to Rukum East, leaving Chitwan-3, his previous constituency.