Kathmandu: After the fall of their government in May 2009, Nepal's former guerrilla party, the Maoists, finally returned to power on Friday despite a protracted battle over power-sharing.
In the presence of Nepal's President, Ram Baran Yadav, Vice President Parmananda Jha and chairman of parliament Subhas Nembang, four Maoist lawmakers were administered oath of office and secrecy by Prime Minister Jhala Nath Khanal, breaking a month-long deadlock.
Former Maoist minister Krishna Bahadur Mahara led the four-member Maoist contingent after the three top leaders of the party failed to finalise names for all the 11 ministries allotted to the former rebels.
Mahara, a former information and communications minister, was given his old ministry. Mahara is also the second deputy prime minister. Lawmaker Top Bahadur Rayamajhi became physical planning and works minister, a much-coveted portfolio.
Barsha Man Pun Ananta, a former deputy chief of the Maoists' People's Liberation Army (PLA), became peace and reconstruction minister while Khadga Bahadur Bishwokarma became tourism and civil aviation minister.
While Bishwokarma is from the Dalit community, there are no women in the first lot despite the Maoists attributing the success of their decade-old armed uprising to the en masse participation of women.
Mahara returns to power despite being involved in a vote-buying scandal last year. He was taped during a phone conversation, seeking money from a businessman in China to buy MPs' support for Prachanda in the prime ministerial election.
The revelation torpedoed Prachanda's chances of winning the election.
After blowing hot and cold on joining Khanal's communist-led government for weeks, the Maoists finally agreed to send their ministers when the PM agreed to give them the key peace and reconstruction ministry instead of home affairs.
The home ministry was held back after the PM's party opposing it, saying the former rebels would then withdraw all criminal cases against their cadres.
The sop, the peace and reconstruction ministry, will allow the Maoists considerable control over the contentious issue of their guerrilla army.
Nearly 20,000 PLA fighters are still living in cantonments with the Maoists refusing to demobilise them. The former guerrillas want the fighters to be recruited into the national army while the other parties are opposing the proposal, saying the 'politically indoctrinated' PLA can't be trusted in the army.
Though the power-sharing row between the Maoists and Khanal was resolved temporarily, the expansion of the four-member council of ministers remained deadlocked after rifts surfaced between Prachanda and his two deputies.
The deputies, Baburam Bhattarai and Mohan Vaidya, reportedly favoured another senior leader over Mahara but were overruled.
Though the Maoists could not finalise the names of all 11 ministers, both they and the government decided to rush through an oath-taking ceremony Friday after growing complaints that the absence of ministers was preventing parliament from discharging its duties, especially the task of drafting a new constitution.
The endless fights over power-sharing have insidiously eaten into the one-year lifeline thrown to the parties to draft a new constitution by May 28.
There were also concerns that Nepal's former prime minister Krishna Prasad Bhattarai, who is struggling for life in a city hospital since Wednesday, could breathe his last any moment, resulting in national mourning.