Nepal Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ on Wednesday resigned from his post after a brief stint of nine months, honouring a power sharing understanding reached between his party and the ruling partner Nepali Congress on August 3, 2016.
The pact was to run the government on a rotational basis until elections to Parliament are held in February 2018.
Mr. Dahal, 62, announced his resignation while addressing the nation in a live telecast. It was his second stint as the Prime Minister.
Mr. Dahal, who is the the Chairman of CPN (Maoist Centre), was elected the 39th Prime Minister after reaching an understanding with Nepali Congress president Sher Bahadur Deuba.
He was to hold office till local polls are held and remaining two elections — provincial and central — are to be conducted under Mr. Deuba.
Millions of Nepalese, on May 14, voted in the country’s first local level polls in two decades as the Himalayan nation took a crucial step towards cementing democracy amid political turmoil.
Local level elections could not be held after 1997, largely as a result of the decade-long Maoist insurgency that claimed more than 16,000 lives in Nepal.
Elections should be held in every five years but due to political instability, they were halted since May 1997.
