KATHMANDU, Jan 2: Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal has requested CPN (Unified Socialist) to recall Minister for Physical Infrastructure and Transport Prakash Jwala from the Council of Ministers. The prime minister personally requested CPN (Unified Socialist) Chairman Madhav Kumar Nepal to recall the minister on behalf of the party after he courted controversy during the Balkumari incident last week. Sources said that Prime Minister Dahal urged Chairman Nepal to recall Minister Prakash Jwala as he was found to be responsible for the deaths of two people at the EPS office in Balkumari, Lalitpur, on December 29.
"It would be better to recall the Minister for Physical Infrastructure and Transport because he was dragged into a controversy," the source said, quoting Prime Minister Dahal's appeal to Nepal.
Unified Socialist urges PM to end parliamentary obstructions
Some of the 28,000 youths who failed the ship-building test in the South Korea Employment Permit System (EPS) were protesting near the EPS branch office in Gwarko last Friday when Minister Jwala was traveling through the route in his official vehicle. As the mob tried to manhandle Minister Jwala, security personnel reportedly killed two people in an attempt to protect the minister. The enraged youths then burnt the minister’s vehicle. Hundreds of youths had been protesting outside the branch since Thursday. The security personnel have said that the two people died because of the minister.
On Monday, Home Minister Narayan Kaji Shrestha and Inspector General of Police Basanta Kunwar told the Parliament's State Affairs and Good Governance Committee that the protest erupted due to the negligence of the Ministry of Labor while that the Physical Infrastructure Minister was responsible for the death of the two people. The State Affairs and Good Governance Committee has also raised questions about the roles of labor minister and the home minister but the prime minister is silent about them.