Nepal political crisis: 7 ministers in KP Oli's Cabinet quit

In a joint statement released by the ministers they labelled Oli's move to dissolve the house as unconditional, the statement read.

"We have already made it clear that we had opposed the prime minister’s move of dissolving the House of Representatives, we hereby resign from our posts to express our disagreement to the prime minister’s unconstitutional and undemocratic move which is against the people’s mandate and political principles and stability."

The seven ministers who resigned include Minister for Education, Science and Technology Giriraj Mani Pokhrel; Minister for Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation Barsha Man Pun; Minister for Agriculture and Livestock Development Ghanashyam Bhusal; Minister for Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation Yogesh Kumar Bhattarai; Minister for Forest and Environment Shakti Bahadur Basnet; Minister for Labour and Employment Rameshwor Raya Yadav and Minister for Water Supply and Sanitation Bina Magar.

After the dissolution of the House, as per the Cabinet’s recommendation, President Bidiya Devi Bhandari has called for general elections for April 30 and May 10.

In a drastic step, Oli on Sunday decided to dissolve the House amid a deepening crisis in his Nepal Communist Party where he has fallen into the minority after the faction led by Pushpa Kamal Dahal, Madhav Kumar Nepal and Jhala Nath Khanal put pressure on him either to abide by party decisions or step down.

Oli was elected prime minister in February 2018 after the alliance of his CPN-UML and Dahal’s CPN (Maoist Centre) was handed a majority in the 2017 elections. The two parties had merged in May 2018 to form the Nepal Communist Party.