KATHMANDU: Last year, his party fared disastrously in the elections and Nepal’s Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala had to make way for a new leader. However, 18 months later, the patriarch has bounced back with an iron grip on the new government with Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal

Now the 44-member jumbo cabinet, whose tenure is to end in May 2010 with the promulgation of a new constitution, has two deputy PMs. The senior deputy prime minister is physical planning and infrastructure minister Bijay Kumar Gacchedar, whose Madhesi Janadhikar Forum party last year defeated both Sujata Koirala and Koirala’s nephew Dr Shekhar Koirala in the historic constituent assembly election.

Now the 44-member jumbo cabinet, whose tenure is to end in May 2010 with the promulgation of a new constitution, has two deputy PMs. The senior deputy prime minister is physical planning and infrastructure minister Bijay Kumar Gacchedar, whose Madhesi Janadhikar Forum party last year defeated both Sujata Koirala and Koirala’s nephew Dr Shekhar Koirala in the historic constituent assembly election.

Koirala was said to have been driving bargains with both Nepal and Maoist chief Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda in the past few months when doubts arose about the stability of the current government. The octogenarian leader, whose Nepali Congress party, being the second largest in parliament after the Maoists is propping up the Nepal government, is said to have been pushing for his daughter’s elevation. The government’s capitulation comes as Prachanda is away in China for a week-long visit and his party has kepr parliament under siege.

The Koirala family has already given Nepal three prime ministers and are likened to the Gandhi family of India. Now Sujata Koirala is bound to be likened to Indira Gandhi, Chandrika Kumaratunga, Benazir Bhutto and Sheikh Hasina. She is also the second women to become deputy prime minister in conservative Nepal. The first, Shailaja Acharya, was Koirala’s niece.