The Janata Samajbadi Party on Sunday joined the Pushpa Kamal Dahal-led government.

The party’s chair Upendra Yadav took an oath of office and secrecy from President Ramchandra Paudel as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Health and Population. Likewise, Nawal Kishor Sah Sudi of the same party was inducted into the Cabinet as Minister for Forests and Environment.

The prime minister held both the portfolios earlier.

The Dahal Cabinet is now 22-strong with four deputy prime ministers, one each from CPN-UML, CPN (Maoist Centre), Rastriya Swatantra Party and Janata Samajbadi Party. The Constitution envisages a maximum of 25-member Cabinet in the federal government.

The President constituted the Council of Ministers with the appointments of a deputy prime minister and a minister and also allocated the portfolios, on the recommendation of the prime minister and in accordance with Article 76 (9) of the Constitution, the Office of President said in a statement.

Yadav was elected to the House of Representatives from the Bara constituency-2 in the 2023 by-elections. Prior to this, he was the deputy prime minister and the minister for health and population from June 2018 to November 2019 during the KP Sharma Oli-led government.

Similarly, Sah is the lower house member from Saptari-1.

The CPN-UML, Rastriya Swatantra Party and CPN (Unified Socialist) had earlier joined the government after Dahal broke his alliance with Congress and other fringe parties and formed a new alliance on March 4.