Deputy Prime Ministers of Nepal & Notable Ministerial Firsts

The Deputy Prime Minister (DPM) is the deputy head of government of Nepal and the second-ranking member of the Council of Ministers after the Prime Minister. The post is not a permanent constitutional fixture — a government may have one, several, or none at all — but when it exists, the holder ranks immediately below the PM in cabinet seniority and can preside over the council in the Prime Minister's absence. Deputy prime ministers almost always hold a substantive portfolio (such as Home, Finance or Foreign Affairs) alongside the title.

The office was created on 17 May 1959, at the dawn of Nepal's first elected government. Subarna Shamsher Rana of the Nepali Congress became the first Deputy Prime Minister, serving under Prime Minister B.P. Koirala from 27 May 1959 until King Mahendra dismissed the government on 15 December 1960. In the years of the Panchayat and the 1990 constitutional monarchy the title was used only occasionally; it became a routine feature of cabinet-making after Nepal became a federal democratic republic in 2008.

Under the coalition politics of the federal republic, the Deputy Prime Minister post has been used heavily — frequently with two, three or even four DPMs serving simultaneously to balance the parties in a coalition. The Wikipedia register of the office lists more than twenty individuals who have held the title since 2008, several of them more than once. The list below highlights notable holders and the prime ministers they served under; exact start and end dates depend on each cabinet reshuffle.

Nepal's executive has produced a series of landmark firsts for women. Dwarika Devi Thakurani became the country's first woman minister when she was appointed Deputy Minister of Health and Local Self-governance on 27 May 1959 in B.P. Koirala's cabinet, having been the only woman elected to the House of Representatives in Nepal's first general election.

Shailaja Acharya (Nepali Congress) became the first woman Deputy Prime Minister in 1998, under Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala; she was also the first woman to serve as Minister of Water Resources. Her cousin Sujata Koirala became the second woman DPM in October 2009. The wider executive firsts followed under the 2015 constitution and after.

Representation of Nepal's Dalit (historically 'untouchable') communities in the executive has been a slow process. The first Dalit to be given a ministerial role was Hira Lal Bishwakarma, appointed an assistant/state minister during the Panchayat era in the mid-1970s under King Birendra. Full cabinet ministers from the Dalit community came only after the second People's Movement: the interim government formed by Girija Prasad Koirala in 2006 inducted Khadga Bahadur Bishwakarma and Chhabilal Bishwakarma as full ministers, the first from the community in the country's history.

These milestones underpin the 'inclusive principle' written into the 2015 constitution, which requires the Council of Ministers to be formed in accordance with inclusion across Nepal's gender, caste, ethnic and regional groups. Continued debate about Dalit, Madhesi and women's representation in cabinet reflects how recent and uneven many of these firsts have been.

Under Article 76 of the Constitution of Nepal (2015), executive power is vested in the Council of Ministers. The President constitutes the council on the recommendation of the Prime Minister, drawing its members from the Federal Parliament and following the inclusive principle. The constitution caps the council at a maximum of 25 ministers, including the Prime Minister.

For the purposes of that article, the term 'Minister' covers four ranks: Deputy Prime Minister, Minister (full cabinet minister), Minister of State, and Assistant Minister. The Prime Minister and ministers are collectively responsible to the Federal Parliament, while each minister is individually responsible to the Prime Minister and Parliament for their own ministry. This is why the Deputy Prime Minister sits at the top of the ministerial hierarchy below the PM, rather than being a separate constitutional office.

The directory of current and former office-holders is maintained by the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers (OPMCM), the political and bureaucratic secretariat that supports the Prime Minister and the cabinet. Based at Singha Durbar in Kathmandu and headed administratively by the Chief Secretary, the OPMCM coordinates, monitors and directs the work of all government ministries.

The OPMCM's mandate includes implementing and monitoring cabinet decisions, restructuring ministries, and processing bills, ordinances and rules — making it the apex coordinating body of Nepal's federal executive. Its records of the current Council of Ministers and of former office-holders are the authoritative source for who has served as Deputy Prime Minister and in other ministerial ranks.