Co-chairman of the ruling Nepal Communist Party (NCP) Pushpa Kamal Dahal on Tuesday said the party could reshuffle the Cabinet.

His hint comes amid increasing frustrations of citizens over the poor performance of the KP Oli-led government.

Talking to journalists at his residence on Tuesday, Dahal said the top two NCP leaders are assessing the government’s performance and agreed to take strong measures to ensure the Cabinet delivers the promises the party made to the public.

Dahal said the Cabinet reshuffle would go ahead irrespective of the ministers’ political background. The current Cabinet has 12 ministers from former CPN-UML, while seven are from former Maoist Centre. “Whoever the ministers—an individual is not important when it comes to the welfare of party, people, and the state,” Dahal said, adding he plans to discuss the government’s performance, or the lack of it, during the last six months with PM Oli.

Last month, Oli warned his ministers he would monitor their activities and would take action anytime if they did not perform.

Dahal denied any conflict or tension between the two leaders. “You cannot find differences between us, even if you try,” he told reporters.

On introducing the supplementary budget, Dahal said he was not sure if such budget could be a panacea, but the government will come up with some measure to address the issues raised by lawmakers.

When asked about the ongoing taxation row among three-tier governments, Dahal said it was expected since the nation is exercising a new system for the first time, and one cannot learn new things without making some mistakes. “Real practical debate on federalism has just begun, which was earlier on theoretical and political phase,” he said.

India, China visits are in ‘national interest’ Dahal said his forthcoming visits to India and China are  guided by national interests. He leaves for India on Thursday where he would meet Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other leaders. He begins his visit to China on September 15.

“Being the co-chairman of the ruling party, these two countries wanted me to visit,” he said, reassuring reporters that he had no other tasks in the two countries besides discussing broad national and development interests of the country.

Party unification to complete by mid-SeptemberDahal said the ongoing unification process of the lower committees was not stalled because of the internal conflicts between leaders, but due to their failure to manage time for adequate discussion.

The standing committee meeting called to finalise the unification of lower committees of the party has been postponed twice. “We will complete all essential tasks of the unification issue within mid-September and then move forward for political training and schooling,” he said.