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Kathmandu, Feb 3: Prime Minister Sushila Karki has said that leaders of the September Gen Z movement pressed her hard to appoint certain individuals as ministers while forming the interim government, leaving her with little room to refuse.

Speaking in the National Assembly on Monday, Karki said the pressure came soon after she took office last September, at a time when the country lacked an elected government and an interim setup had to be formed outside party lines. Because the cabinet was not drawn from established political parties, she said she had to look for people from outside the usual political circles.

Karki told the House that intense lobbying followed her oath on September 12, 2025, delaying the cabinet formation. She said Gen Z leaders insisted on including specific names, even though some of those individuals had earlier resigned from ministerial posts to prepare for elections. The names she mentioned included Mahabir Pun, Kulman Ghising, Jagdish Kharel and Bablu Gupta.

According to the prime minister, some of them were unwilling to join the government. Still, she said the pressure was so strong that she had to personally persuade them. In the case of Pun, she recalled that youth leader Sudan Gurung brought him in directly, meeting him while he was selling books and convincing him to accept the role.

Karki also said she had agreed in advance that some ministers, including Ghising, could step down if they later chose to contest elections. She added that Pun eventually left the cabinet upset, after the government failed to introduce several laws he had pushed for within a short time.

Karki was appointed prime minister a day after protests on September 8 and 9 led to the resignation of KP Sharma Oli. Given a six-month mandate to hold elections by March 5, 2026, she said she accepted the role out of responsibility, not ambition, and promised to respect the guidance of the National Assembly as her government works to restore stability.

People’s News Monitoring Service