Nepal names Deep Kumar Upadhyay as India envoy

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

The decision to nominate Upadhyay was taken at a Cabinet meeting headed by Prime Minister Sushil Kumar Koirala in Singhadurbar this evening, said the Prime Minister's Foreign Affairs Adviser Dinesh Bhattarai.

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

Rana was found serving as managing director of Indian joint venture Dabur Nepal.

A Central Working Committee member of the Nepali Congress and a stauch 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 Kapilvastu-1 constituency, but Upadhyay lost the elections from the same constituency last year.

The ambasadorial nominee has to face a parliamentary committee hearing before the agreemo is sent for approval of the host country.