Nepal appoints new envoy to India after three years

KATHMANDU: Nepal today appointed a veteran Nepali Congress leader and former minister Deep Kumar Upadhyay as its new ambassador to India, a critically important post that had been lying vacant for more than three years.

President Ram Baran Yadav appointed Upadhyay on the recommendations of the cabinet, along with Arjun Kumar Karki as ambassador to the US, according to a notice issued by the president's secretariat.

The decision to nominate Upadhyay was taken at a cabinet meeting headed by Prime Minister Sushil Koirala in January.

The post has been lying vacant for three-and-a-half years, after the then Maoist-led government recalled ambassador Rukma Shamsher Rana, also a Nepali Congress leader, in August 2011.

A Central Working Committee member of the Nepali Congress and a staunch supporter of Koirala, Upadhyay has served as an assistant finance minister.

Uphadhyay, who hails from Kapilvastu district in southern Nepal, does not have experience in foreign affairs or in any prior assignment in a diplomatic position.

He, however, is said to have good relations with Indian political leaders.

In the 2008 Constituent Assembly election he was elected from the Kapilavastu-1 constituency, but Upadhyay lost the elections from the same constituency last year.