Nepal PM Deuba embarks on first official visit to India

Along with his spouse and a delegation of 50 members, Nepali Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba has embarked on a three days visit to India on Friday, making it the first official visit after assuming the post for the fifth time.

The delegation started off from Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu today for New Delhi at the invitation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Prime Minister Deuba left for New Delhi via a 1.25 pm Nepal Airlines Corporation flight and is scheduled to return home on April 3.

The delegation includes PM Deuba's spouse Arzu Rana Deuba, Foreign Minister Narayan Khadka and other ministers, secretaries and officials.

During the visit, Prime Minister Deuba will meet External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar today. While on the second day of his visit, the Nepal Prime Minister will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Hyderabad House, besides other engagements.

Apart from other official engagements in New Delhi, the Prime Minister of Nepal will visit Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh. In a press statement, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said India and Nepal enjoy age-old special ties of friendship and cooperation.

"In recent years, the partnership has witnessed significant growth in all areas of cooperation. The upcoming visit will provide an opportunity to the two sides to review this wide-ranging cooperative partnership and to progress it further for the benefit of the two peoples," MEA had said.

Deuba was sworn in as Prime Minister of Nepal in July 2021. This would be the first official bilateral visit, either incoming or outgoing since he took over the reins.

The last HOS/HOG-level visit from Nepal was in May 2019, when then PM K P Oli visited India for the swearing-in ceremony of PM Modi and the Union Council of Ministers. Before that PM Modi had visited Nepal in August 2018 for the 4th BIMSTEC Summit in Kathmandu, which was preceded by a State Visit to Nepal in May 2018.

PM Narendra Modi had extended a congratulatory message to Sher Bahadur Deuba soon after he won the Vote of Confidence in Nepal's Parliament. This was followed by a congratulatory telephonic conversation on 19 July 2021. The most recent meeting between PM Modi and Sher Bahadur Deuba took place on November 2, 2021, on the sidelines of COP 26 in Glasgow.

Sher Bahadur Deuba is a veteran politician of the Nepali Congress with a political career spanning over seven decades. This is Deuba's fifth tenure as PM. His first term was from September 1995 to March 1997.

He has visited India several times, both when in and out of power. This will be his fifth visit to India as PM, with the last visit being in August 2017. The previous three visits took place in 2004, 2002 and 1996.

( With inputs from ANI )