Janamat Party lawmaker Satish Kumar Singh was appointed as Madhesh Province chief minister on Friday.

He became the chief minister with support from the CPN-UML, CPN (Maoist Centre), Janamat Party, CPN (Unified Socialist), Nagarik Unmukti Party and Nepal Sanghiya Samajbadi Party.

He assumed the office and formed a 14-member Cabinet later in the day. Of them, three are ministers of state.

Singh appointed Maoist Centre lawmakers Bharat Prasad Sah and Yuvaraj Bhattarai as the minister for finance, and the minister for industry, commerce and tourism, respectively.

Likewise, Saroj Kumar Yadav of the UML assumed office as the minister for Physical Infrastructure Development. The UML’s Rajkumar Lekhi, minister for Education and Culture; Shatrudhan Prasad Singh, minister for Health and Population; and Pramod Kumar Jaiswal, minister for Sports and Social Welfare, were also sworn in.

Govinda Bahadur Neupane of the Unified Socialist has been appointed the minister for land management, agriculture and cooperatives while Benchi Lungeli of the same party has been assigned the Ministry of Water Supply, Energy and Irrigation.

Similarly, Nepal Federal Socialist Party’s sole assembly member in the province, Bimala Ansari, has been appointed the minister for home affairs, communications and law, and Urmila Devi Singh of the Nagarik Unmukti Party has assumed office as the minister for labour and transport.

Singh also inducted three new ministers of state—Keshav Rai and Sharada Devi Thapa of the UML, and Ranju Kumari Mandal Khang of the Janamat Party. Rai and Thapa will head the health ministry and the ministry of Education and Culture, respectively. Khang has yet to be assigned a portfolio.

Janamat Party’s Singh is the third chief minister of the Madhesh Province. The new ruling coalition that includes the UML and the Maoist Centre formed the new government under the leadership of the CK Raut-led Janamat party after Saroj Kumar Yadav of Janata Samajbadi Party-Nepal lost a vote of confidence on Wednesday.

Upendra Yadav’s party, under varying names due to mergers and splits, was leading the Madhesh provincial government for the past six and a half years after the first provincial assembly elections in 2017.

Province Head Bhandari called for the new government formation after outgoing chief minister Saroj Kumar Yadav of JSP-Nepal failed to secure a vote of confidence during the floor test. He was appointed to the post 17 months ago. Previously, Lal Babu Raut of the same party served a full five-year term as chief minister of the province.

A meeting of the provincial assembly on Wednesday rejected the motion tabled by the chief minister seeking the assembly’s trust. Of the 103 members present in the meeting, 50 members of the assembly voted in favour of his motion while 53 voted against.

Singh of the CK Raut-led party staked his claim with the backing of 55 assembly members. Singh showed support of 24 members from the UML, 13 from his own Janamat Party, nine from the Maoist Centre, seven from the CPN (Unified Socialist), and one each from the Nagarik Unmukti Party and Nepal Sanghiya Samajbadi Party.

In the 107-strong Madhesh assembly, the support of 54 assembly members is required for a simple majority.

Holding the first meeting of the Cabinet, the new government made a controversial decision. The meeting decided to allocate pork barrel funds to lawmakers of the province under the title of Constituency Development Fund. The meeting decided to dole out Rs50 million to each of the directly elected members while those elected under the proportional representation category will get Rs15 million each under the title, said Bharat Sah, newly appointed finance minister of the province.

The centre stopped the distribution of pork barrel funds through the annual budget after successive governments were widely criticised for doling out billions of rupees to lawmakers for discretionary spending on pet projects. It was challenged in the court as well.

First dalit in Madhesh Cabinet

Singh has inducted a dalit woman as a minister of state in his Cabinet. This is the first time that a dalit has been included in the Madhesh Cabinet ever since the provincial government came into existence after the 2017 general elections.

Janamat Party's Ranju Kumari Khang, who was elected assembly member under the proportional representation category representing a dalit community, has been appointed minister of state. She, however, is yet to be assigned any portfolio.

In the first provincial assembly elected in 2017, seven lawmakers in the Madhesh assembly were from Dalit communities. But none of them were given a chance to join the Cabinet. In this assembly, eight members are from dalit communities.

"Various dalit communities make up nearly 18 percent of the Madhesh population, but none of the lawmakers representing these communities were appointed as ministers in the provincial government," said BP Sah, secretary of the Janamat Party. "But our party has made a historic decision and worked in line with the principles of inclusion."

Minister of State Khang said that her party has demonstrated its commitment to working for all communities, rather than focussing solely on certain ones, while respecting the spirit of participation and inclusion of all communities.