PM Pushpa Kumar Dahal approves rail deal with China under BRI before losing vote of confidence in Nepali Parliament

In the HoR meeting, 63 lawmakers voted in favour of the motion, 194 voted against it, and 1 remained neutral, resulting in PM Dahal's loss, reported The Himalayan Times.

In the House of Representatives, 138 votes are needed for a majority.

The House has 275 members in total.

Prachanda survived four trust votes since assuming his post on December 25, 2022.

The Prachanda-led government received a shock recently when ex-prime minister K P Sharma Oli-led CPN-UML withdrew support and inked a power-sharing deal with the Nepali Congress.

China-Nepal-BRI

Before facing the trust vote, Prachanda approved an agreement to connect Nepal and China by rail under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

“The Cabinet meeting held on Thursday decided to approve the ‘Strengthening the Development Cooperation in Building the Trans-Himalayan Multidimensional Connectivity Network’ agreement between Nepal and China,” Communication Minister Rekha Sharma, who is also the government’s spokesperson, told My Republica news portal.

What is BRI?

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) by China is a global infrastructure development strategy adopted by the Chinese government in 2013 to invest in more than 150 countries and international organizations.

It is considered a centrepiece of the Chinese leader Xi Jinping's foreign policy.