India has named Manjeev Singh Puri as its new ambassador to Nepal. Puri will succeed Ranjit Rae who completed his three-and-a-half-year term as the Indian ambassador to Nepal on Tuesday. 

Puri, currently India’s ambassador to Belgium and simultaneously accredited as ambassador of India to Luxembourg and the European Union, is likely to arrive in Nepal to assume office only after a month or so, informed sources told the Post, as he has to wrap up his current diplomatic assignments.   

Appointment of an Indian ambassador to Nepal is often keenly observed in Kathmandu, given the longstanding—and in the meantime sensitive—relations Nepal and India share.

India’s Ministry of External Affairs on Wednesday, according to the sources, communicated to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Kathmandu, confirming Puri as Delhi’s pick for Nepal. 

Speculations earlier were rife in Kathmandu that a political appointee could be heading the Indian mission in Kathmandu. Confirmation of Puri, a career diplomat form Indian Foreign Service’s 1982 batch, as Delhi’s new envoy to Kathmandu has put the speculations finally to rest.

Puri is succeeding Rae who once taught him at St Stephen’s College when he was doing his Bachelor’s in Economics. But it is also a coincidence that Puri is arriving in Kathmandu at a time when Nepal is holding local level elections after two decades. His predecessor Rae had arrived in Nepal in September 2013—months before the country went to vote to elect the Second Constituent Assembly.

During Rae’s tenure, Nepal reeled from India’s five-month-long undeclared border blockade following the promulgation of the constitution in September. New Delhi’s terse statement that it “noted” that it had taken place had led to souring of ties between Nepal and India.  

At the time of Puri’s appointment, politics remains fractious in Nepal with the Madhes-based parties standing against local elections, which Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal has committed to holding at any cost. 

In his long career as a diplomat, Puri has never served in any of the neighbouring countries. He earlier served as an ambassador and deputy permanent representative of India to the United Nations in New York from 2009 to 2013. 

He was a senior member of India’s Security Council team from 2011 to 2012, when India served in the Security Council.

Even though Puri has not served in any neighbouring country of India, sources familiar to—and who have worked with—Puri told the Post over phone from Delhi that he is fully acquainted with Nepal issues, for the fact that he had served at India’ Permanent Mission to UN in New York. 

 “Rarely is there any attachment between diplomats and political parties,” a diplomatic source told the Post from Delhi over phone. “Puri’s political inclination will hardly count when he takes charge of Lainchaur; he will but toe the official Indian line when it comes to Delhi’s position on Nepal.”  Former foreign minister Bhekh Bahadur Thapa said India’s decision to send a career diplomat as its envoy to Nepal means “Delhi’s official position on Nepal continues to remain the same”. 

Earlier, Preeti Saran, former joint secretary at India’s Ministry of External, and Dalbir Singh Suhag, former chief of Indian Army, were also said to have been discussed as Rae’s possible successor in Kathmandu.