Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal administered the oath of office and secrecy to Shukla as the new education minister on Wednesday. The TMDP decided to recall Kushwaha due to his alleged involvement in corruption. [break]
Kushwaha has been accused of selling relief quotas across the country charging anything from Rs 100,000 to Rs 300,000 for each teacher.
“Our party decided to recall him as donor agencies and the parliamentary committee raised questions over alleged irregularities. The party had to replace him with another senior leader to control further damage to the country as well as the party," said TMDP Chief Whip Brijesh Kumar Gupta.
International donors had demanded action against Kushwaha as a condition for continuation of funding of billions of rupees for education programs in Nepal.
According to sources at the finance ministry, the donors had warned that they would stop disbursement of the committed amount and not sign further agreements if convincing steps were not taken to address rampant corruption in the Education Ministry. Kushwaha is also being investigated by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) over financial irregularities.
Five months ago, the PAC had implicated Kushwaha in irregularities in the purchase of printing materials for the state-run Janak Shiksha Samagri Kendra Limited, the sole authority for printing textbooks for government schools.
TMDP Vice-chairman Hridayesh Tripathi, however, said the party decided to recall him as the party cadres were dissatisfied with his work.
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