Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal is set to change his coalition partners and pick new ministers.

Breaking the alliance with Nepali Congress, the largest party in the House of Representatives, the prime minister is all set to join hands with the CPN-UML, the second-largest in the lower house.

According to cross-party leaders, the prime minister will form a small Cabinet by inducting ministers from the CPN-UML, Rastriya Swatantra Party and Janata Samajbadi Party apart from the CPN (Maoist Centre) led by himself.

A secretariat meeting of the CPN-UML held earlier in the morning, decided to join the government and send party leader Padam Giri to the Cabinet. Giri, who is now the party’s chief whip in the lower house, was health minister in the Dahal-led Cabinet earlier.

In the meantime, the Maoist Centre held its office-bearers’ meeting today to make a decision in the changed context. Emerging from the meeting, leader Devendra Paudel said the step to ally with the UML was taken with a plan to forge a left unity for the long term.

He said both parties are trying to correct past mistakes and move forward.

“There has been a talk between the UML and Maoist leaders to seriously review the past mistakes and weaknesses and take a new approach ahead. This step has been taken to correct the entire political course of Nepal and move towards a new polarisation,” he said.

According to Maoist leaders, Dahal at the meeting had briefed his party leaders in detail as to why he had to break the alliance with Congress and join hands with other political parties.

Paudel said a new power equation was developed as the Congress created obstacles for the prime minister to perform.

Swatantra Party and Janata Samajbadi Party will also join the government.

The prime minister will send a letter to President Ramchandra Paudel regarding the Cabinet reshuffle. The new minister will likely take an oath of office and secrecy today, said a UML leader.

Earlier today, UML vice-chair Surendra Pandey claimed that a new government will be formed today.

“The new government formation and swearing-in of the new ministers will take place today,” Pandey wrote on social media.

Mistrust between the ruling Congress and the Maoist Centre has been brewing for a long time. Prime Minister Dahal was expressing his displeasure with some senior Congress leaders saying that Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba was not cooperating in his plan to replace some ministers despite their failure to perform well in the government.

The prime minister in his address to the nation in the last week of December last year had announced that he would replace the minister who failed to deliver.

Dahal, who became prime minister with the support of CPN-UML in December 2022, broke the coalition and joined hands with Nepali Congress just after a few months.