2021

On midnight 22 May 2021, then-president Bidya Devi Bhandari dissolved Parliament at the behest of UML Chair K P Sharma Oli after he failed to be reappointed prime minister.

Oli had previously also dissolved Parliament in December 2020, but the Supreme Court overturned his decision, calling it unconstitutional. The short-lived Nepal Communist Party that merged the UML and Maoists thus split, creating an irreconcilable rift within UML bigwigs Oli and Madhav Kumar Nepal.

All of this happened while Nepal was in the throes of the deadly Delta variant, and 150 Nepalis were dying every day. We wrote in 2021:

’The reshuffle highlighted the government’s inability to focus attention on protecting Nepalis with vaccines while the virus is ravaging the countryside, and addressing the loss of jobs during the lockdown.’

NC president Sher Bahadur Deuba consequently led a five-party alliance of 149 MPs -- from the NC, the Maoist Centre as well breakaway factions of the JSP and the UML -- to file a writ petition after President Bhandari thwarted claims from both Oli and and an opposition alliance of a House majority to form the next government.

In July, the Supreme Court once again overturned Oli’s decision and reinstated the House of Representatives, ordering Deuba be installed as prime minister. The Maoist Centre backed Deuba, making way for a new coalition government which Deuba would be in charge of until the next general election.

Meanwhile, UML’s Nepal faction backed Deuba for prime minister, which became the straw that broke the camel’s back for Oli and Nepal’s relationship. By August, the Nepal faction had broken away from Oli to form its own CPN-Unified Socialists. Mahanta Thakur also split from the Janta Samajwadi Party to form his Loktantrik Samajwadi Party (LSP).

In the months that followed, the major parties began to prepare for their general conventions and the upcoming election, as the Unified Socialists and Maoists — which had become smaller parties — struggled to find their footing in the new political landscape. 

Meanwhile, political infighting and reshuffling of power in government had brought governance to a standstill amidst an ongoing pandemic. This post break-up era of politics was the beginning of the musical chairs of coalition governments and premiership between K P Oli, Sher Bahadur Deuba, and Pushpa Kamal Dahal that we are still going through in 2025.