Nepal Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba (SBD) will pay an official visit to India from April 1-3, his first such visit abroad after assuming office in July 2021.
He will be accompanied by a high-level delegation and his spouse Dr Arzu Deuba. Nepal Prime Minister is visiting India at the invitation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
During his visit, Deuba will call on Vice President Venkaiah Naidu and hold talks with PM Modi on April 2. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval will also call on the Nepal PM.
Besides official engagements in New Delhi, the Prime Minister of Nepal will visit Varanasi, UP.
In a press statement, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said India and Nepal enjoy age-old and 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 said.
Deuba was sworn in as Prime Minister of Nepal in July 2021. This would be the first official bilateral visit, either incoming or outgoing since he took over the reins.
The last HOS/HOG-level visit from Nepal was in May 2019, when then PM K P Oli visited India for the swearing-in ceremony of PM Modi and the Union Council of Ministers. Before that PM Modi 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.
PM had extended a congratulatory message to SBD soon after he won the Vote of Confidence in Nepal's Parliament. This was followed by a congratulatory telephonic conversation on 19 July 2021. The most recent meeting between PM and SBD took place on November 2, 2021, on the sidelines of COP 26 in Glasgow.
SBD is a veteran politician of the Nepali Congress with a political career spanning over seven decades. This is SBD's fifth tenure as PM. 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 PM, with the last visit being in August 2017. The previous three visits took place in 2004, 2002 and 1996.
( With inputs from ANI )
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