Nepal's Sher Bahadur Deuba in India for three-day visit: What's the agenda?

Nepal prime minister Sher Bahadur Deuba arrived on a three-day visit to India on Friday, making it the first official trip after assuming the post for the fifth time. He was accompanied by his spouse Arzu Rana Deuba and a delegation of 50 members.

A fond welcome to a special friend.

PM of Nepal @SherBDeuba arrives in India for an official visit from 01-03 April 2022.

This is his first bilateral visit abroad after assuming office in July 2021. pic.twitter.com/57t0n5IiJJ

— Randhir Jaiswal (@MEAIndia) April 1, 2022

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

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

The delegation includes Foreign Minister Narayan Khadka and other ministers, secretaries and officials. Here is what the Nepal leader’s itinerary will look like:

A meet with Jaishankar

Deuba will meet External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Friday. He will also visit the BJP office on the day.

The PMs meet 

On Saturday, he will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Hyderabad House in New Delhi. The two prime ministers will jointly inaugurate the 35-km Jaynagar-Kurtha railway service between India and Nepal

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The train service will criss-cross from Jaynagar in Bihar to Kurtha in Janakpur, Nepal. The Jaynagar-Kurtha section is part of the 68.7km Jaynagar-Bijalpura-Bardidas rail link built under the Government of India’s grant assistance of NPR 8.77 billion.

The new infrastructure was built for broad gauge railway operation by replacing the narrow gauge, which was stopped more than seven years ago. Nepal Railway Company has made all necessary preparations for the inaugural ceremony, according to officials

Deuba is expected to visit Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh,  before wrapping up the three-day visit.

India-Nepal ties

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 since he took over the reins.

The last HOS/HOG-level visit from Nepal was in May 2019, when then prime minister KP Oli visited India for the swearing-in ceremony of Modi. Before that, the Indian PM 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.

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 telephonic conversation on 19 July 2021. The most recent meeting between the two prime ministers took place on 2 November 2021, on the sidelines of COP26 in Glasgow.

Deuba is a veteran politician of the Nepali Congress with a political career spanning over seven decades. This is his fifth tenure as prime minister. 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 prime minister, with the last visit being in August 2017. The previous three visits took place in 2004, 2002 and 1996.

With input from agencies

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