Man Mohan Adhikari

From 1994 to 1995, Man Mohan Adhikari served as Nepal's 31st Prime Minister, representing the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist). He was Nepal's first democratically elected Prime Minister from the Communist Party.

Man Mohan Adhikari

He was a Nepalese politician who spent most of his adult life fighting against monarchy and authoritarian rule; he was Nepal's first communist prime minister for about nine months in 1994–95, during which time he implemented a number of reforms, including a "build-your-own-village" program that directed money to poor villages.

Contents 

1 Family and Early Life

2 Health and death

3 References

Family and Early Life

He was born in Lazimpat, Kathmandu, Nepal, and grew up in Biratnagar. His ancestors were Brahmin landowners from Eastern Nepal. In 1938, he was sent to Varanasi to study. Adhikari was arrested by British colonial authorities in 1942 while studying for his B.Sc. and imprisoned alongside other politicians as part of the Quit India campaign. Adhikari became a member of the Communist Party of India after being interested in the Indian communist movement. He returned to Biratnagar and worked in the chemical business, where he was arrested and sent to Kathmandu via land route with Girija Prasad Koirala and Bishweshwar Prasad Koirala in March 1947 during the Biratnagar jute mill strike.

He took part in the founding of the Communist Party of Nepal in 1949. During the Bangladesh Liberation War, Adhikari asserted that the war was an Indian aggression against Pakistan.

Following the dissolving of parliament in November 1994, elections were conducted. Despite receiving a greater popular vote than the UML, Congress won 88 seats to the latter's 83. Neither party was able to establish a coalition large enough to win a majority of the 205 seats. Adhikari, on the other hand, became Prime Minister of a minority administration after failing to form a coalition with the National Democratic Party and the Sadbhavana Party.

In a special session of the House of Representatives in June 1995, the Nepali Congress called for a vote of no confidence in Adhikari's government, which was supported by the National Democratic Party and the Sadbhavana Party (who had helped the UML form a minority government in November 1994). Adhikari moved to dissolve parliament and call elections in an attempt to recreate the circumstances under which he took power in 1994. The Supreme Court, however, ruled that this ruling was unconstitutional, and the parliament was reinstalled. The vote of no confidence was successfully carried out. In the 1995 elections, Adhikari's government was defeated.

Adhikari was one of the few democratically elected communist party members in the world to serve as head of the government.

Health and death

Adhikari suffered from asthma for four decades and went to China for four years to seek treatment after contracting tuberculosis.

During an electoral rally in the village of Gothatar on April 19, he suffered a heart attack and went into a coma. On April 22, he was ruled brain dead, with little chance of recovery. Four days later, he died. His wife and two children survived him.