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UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 KATHMANDU 000692 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR SCA/INSB 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PINR KDEM NP
SUBJECT: NEPAL'S CABINET MINISTERS - BIOGRAPHIC INFORMATION 
 
REF: A. KATHMANDU 590 
     ¶B. KATHMANDU 562 
     ¶C. KATHMANDU 522 
     ¶D. KATHMANDU 437 
 
¶1.  (SBU) Following is biographic information about key 
ministers in the current Nepali cabinet.  Biographic 
information about the Prime Minister was reported in Ref D. 
 
Bijay Gachhadar, Deputy Prime Minister and Physical Planning 
and Works 
--------------------------------------------- --------------- 
 
¶2.  (SBU) Bijay Kumar Gachhadar, of the Madhesi People's 
Rights Forum (MPRF), was appointed Deputy Prime Minister and 
Minister of Physical Planning and Works -- the ministry he 
held in the Maoist-led government -- on June 4.  Gachhadar's 
appointment put him into open conflict with MPRF chairman 
Upendra Yadav, who declared that Gachhadar and several of his 
supporters were expelled from the party.  Gachhadar applied 
to register his faction as a separate party at the Election 
Commission.  A decision on his application is pending.  After 
leaving the Nepali Congress (NC) for the MPRF in March 2008, 
Gachhadar won both of the constituencies he contested (one 
each in Morang and Sunsari) in the CA election the following 
month.  He was an NC member elected to Parliament in 1991, 
1994, and 1999.  During that period, he served as Minister 
for Communications (1991), Public Works and Transport (1995), 
Tourism and Civil Aviation (1999-2000), and Water Resources 
(July - October 2002).  Gachhadar reportedly was very close 
to G.P. Koirala until Koirala denied him a ministerial 
portfolio in the cabinet he formed in December 1998. 
Gachhadar has militant political roots and reportedly remains 
involved in corruption.  During his early affiliation with 
the NC, he was involved in a number of armed actions, 
including the 1972 hijacking of a Royal Nepal Airlines flight 
to India.  He was implicated in a 1975 bomb attack on a 
police station in the eastern Terai district of Sunsari. 
Gachhadar was born in 1953 to a Tharu family in Sunsari.  He 
holds a Master's degree in political science from Kathmandu's 
Tribhuvan University.  He is married and has a daughter and 
two sons, one of whom is in the United States.  His English 
is fair. 
 
Sujata Koirala, Foreign Affairs 
------------------------------- 
 
¶3.  (SBU) Sujata Koirala, the only child of NC president 
Girija Prasad Koirala, was appointed Minister of Foreign 
Affairs on June 4.  She previously served as a Minister 
Without Portfolio in the cabinet of her father from January 
to August 2008.  Koirala contested the CA election in April 
2008 but lost to the chairman of the MPRF, Upendra Yadav. 
Koirala has been the head of the foreign relations department 
of the NC since October 2005.  She was elected to the party's 
Central Committee in September 2005.  She has been active in 
politics since her father first became prime minister in 
¶1991.  She also is the founding president of Sushma Koirala 
Memorial Trust, an NGO established in the name of her late 
mother.  Koirala is a controversial figure both within and 
outside her party.  NC members, frustrated with the 
stranglehold the Koirala family has over the party, question 
her political savvy and ability to be effective at the 
national level.  Her name has been connected to a number of 
corruption scams, including one that involved a Royal Nepal 
Airlines contract in the early 1990s, but all allegations 
remain unproven.  Koirala's detractors highlight that she 
repeatedly argued against uprooting the monarchy.  She fled 
to India following the royal takeover in February 2005 and 
returned to Kathmandu after former King Gyanendra conceded 
power in April 2006.  Koirala was born on September 25, 1954 
in Biratnagar, Morang district in the eastern Terai.  She 
completed a course in textile design in Delhi, India. 
Koirala is married to a German national and lived in Germany 
for many years until 1991.  She has two adult children:  a 
son, Siddhartha, and a daughter, Melanie.  Koirala is a 
Brahmin.  She speaks English fluently. 
 
KATHMANDU 00000692  002 OF 003 
 
 
 
Bhim Rawal, Home Affairs 
------------------------ 
 
¶4.  (SBU) Bhim Bahadur Rawal was appointed Minister of Home 
Affairs on June 17.  The Communist Party of Nepal - United 
Marxist Leninist (UML) Central Committee member was elected 
to the CA under the proportional representation system in 
April 2008.  Rawal served as Minister of Tourism and Civil 
Aviation and of Science and Technology in 1998-99 and as the 
State Minister for Commerce, Tourism and Civil Aviation in 
1994-95.  He was elected to Parliament in 1994.  He worked on 
election issues with the United Nations in Cambodia in 
1992-93.  Rawal was an adviser to Jhalanath Khanal -- now UML 
General Secretary -- while the latter served as a minister in 
the interim government of 1990-91.  Rawal allied himself with 
¶M. K. Nepal when Nepal became General Secretary of the UML in 
¶1993.  Khanal, angered by the switch in allegiance, allegedly 
attempted to remove Rawal from his position as State Minister 
in 1994, but M. K. Nepal -- then Deputy Prime Minister -- 
reportedly protected Rawal.  Rawal currently appears to enjoy 
good relations with both Khanal and the now Prime Minister. 
Rawal was born on December 15, 1955 in Achham district in the 
hills of far western Nepal.  He holds an M.A. in political 
science and a bachelor's degree in law from Tribhuvan 
University.  He was a practicing lawyer who worked on a 
number of legal literacy and assistance issues for the Nepal 
Bar Association in the late 1980s.  He is married and has two 
sons.  Rawal is a Chhetri.  He speaks English fluently. 
 
Bidhya Bhandari, Defense 
------------------------ 
 
¶5.  (SBU) Bidhya Bhandari -- the widow of Madan Bhandari, who 
was UML general secretary from 1990 until his death in a car 
accident in 1993 -- was appointed Minister of Defense on May 
¶25.  She previously served as the Minister of Population and 
Environment from March to October 1997.  Bhandari was elected 
one of three Vice Chairpersons of the UML in February 2009. 
Aligned with the Prime Minister's majority faction of the 
UML, she has been a Central Committee member of the party 
since February 2003 and was an alternate Central Committee 
member from 1998 to 2003.  She began politics with the 
Communist Party of Nepal - Marxist Leninist in 1978 and 
joined the UML after the restoration of multiparty democracy 
in 1990.  She was elected to the lower house of Parliament 
from Kathmandu in a by-election in 1994 and was re-elected in 
the mid-term polls later that year.  She was defeated in her 
contest in 2008 and is not a member of the CA.  Bhandari was 
born on June 19, 1961.  She holds a Bachelor's degree from an 
affiliate of Kathmandu's Tribhuvan University.  She has two 
daughters.  Bhandari is a Brahmin.  Her English is poor. 
 
Surendra Pandey, Finance 
------------------------ 
 
¶6.  (SBU) Surendra Prasad Pandey, a close aide of UML 
chairman Jhalanath Khanal, was appointed Minister of Finance 
on May 25.  Pandey was elected to the CA under the 
proportional representation system in April 2008 and was the 
deputy parliamentary party leader of the UML until he became 
a minister.  He was elected to the UML's politburo in May 
¶2009.  Pandey previously served as a member of parliament 
from 1999 to June 2003.  He joined politics at the age of 15 
and spent 12 years underground during the Panchayat era. 
Born in 1958 in Dhading, a district adjoining Kathmandu, 
Pandey has a Master's degree in sociology and is a teacher by 
profession.  He has authored several sociological books. 
Pandey is a Brahmin. 
 
Umakant Chaudhari, Health and Population 
---------------------------------------- 
 
¶7.  (SBU) Umakant Chaudhari, a CA member from the central 
Terai district of Bara, joined the cabinet on June 4 and was 
appointed Minister of Health and Population on June 17.  He 
served as an Assistant Minister of Agriculture and 
 
KATHMANDU 00000692  003 OF 003 
 
 
Cooperatives from July 2004 to January 2005.  Chaudhari is an 
NC Central Committee member.   He sided with the NC 
(Democratic) -- the faction of Sher Bahadur Deuba -- after 
the NC split in September 2002 (the party reunited in 2007). 
Chaudhari began his political career with the mainline NC in 
¶1979.  Prior to that, he served on the Central Committee of 
the NC-affiliated Nepal Students Union in the 1970s. 
Chaudhari was born on August 31, 1966 in Bara district.  He 
holds a Master's degree in botany from Tribhuvan University 
and is an International Visitors Leadership Program alumnus. 
He is married and has a son and three daughters.  Chaudhari 
is Tharu.  His English is poor. 
 
Rakam Chemjong, Peace and Reconstruction 
---------------------------------------- 
 
¶8.  (SBU) Rakam Chemjong, a UML Central Committee since 
February 2009, was appointed Minister of Peace and 
Reconstruction on June 17.  Chemjong was first elected to the 
parliament in 1991 but is not a current CA member.  He twice 
served as president of the Free Students Union, a multi-party 
student council, and is a founding member of the 
UML-affiliated All Nepal National Free Students Union. 
Chemjong was born in 1957 in the eastern Nepal district of 
Dhankuta and holds a B.Sc. from Tribhuvan University (1985). 
He is from the Rai community. 
 
Prakash Sharan Mahat, Energy 
---------------------------- 
 
¶9.  (SBU) Prakash Sharan Mahat, an NC Central Committee 
member, joined the cabinet on June 4 and was appointed 
Minister of Energy on June 17.  Mahat was nominated to the CA 
under the proportional representation system in April 2008. 
He previously served as State Minister of Foreign Affairs 
from July 2004 to January 2005 and as an advisor for 
then-Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba from July 2001 to 
October 2002. A former General Secretary of the NC-affiliated 
Nepal Students Union (1984-88), Mahat has long been active in 
the party and was imprisoned several times before 1990 during 
the struggle for democracy.  Mahat was born in November 1959 
in Nuwakot, a district to the north of Kathmandu.  He was 
awarded a Fulbright Scholarship in 1990 and holds a Ph.D. in 
economics from Southern Illinois University (1997).  He is 
married and has two children.  His older brother, Ram Sharan 
Mahat, was the Finance Minister in several NC governments. 
Prakash Mahat is Chhetri.  His English is excellent. 
 
Comment 
------- 
 
¶10.  (SBU) Home Minister Bhim Rawal is a close Embassy 
contact and an experienced leader well-placed to oversee the 
police services.  After a series of disappointing Home 
Ministers, including the combative Bamdev Gautam in Pushpa 
Dahal's government and the feckless Krishna Sitaula in G.P. 
Koirala's government, we view Rawal as a welcome change. 
Prakash Mahat is also a close Embassy contact.  Post knows 
pro-American Sujata Koirala well but has doubts about her 
effectiveness.  Despite the mixed bag of ministers, all eight 
of the above are in their 40s and 50s -- quite young by 
Nepalese political standards. 
MOON