- Saturday, March 01, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
Nepali president Ram Chandra Paudel, who took charge in March, was on Wednesday (19) flown to New Delhi in India for treatment for problems related to chest and abdomen at a premier All India Institute for Medical Sciences, officials said.
Vice president Ram Sahaya Yadav will stand in for Paudel till he joins back work, the Himalayan nation’s presidential spokesperson Sagar Acharya said, Reuters reported.
Paudel was admitted to the Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, for five days earlier this month after complaining of a chest problem.
When he was taken to the hospital in Kathmandu again on Tuesday (18) with the same problem, the doctors and his family decided to get “better and advanced treatment” in the AIIMS, Baikuntha Thapaliya, a spokesperson for the Nepali hospital, told Reuters.
The former leader of Nepali Congress, who has also served as a deputy prime minister, cabinet minister and speaker of the Nepali House of Representatives, is 78.
Kiran Pokhrel, one of Paudel’s aides, said the Nepali president was flown to India in an air ambulance on Wednesday morning.
Paudel was elected as the third president of Nepal in March amid a bitter crisis in the then ruling coalition led by prime minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’.
The coalition split after Dahal, a former Maoist rebel leader, backed Paudel — an opposition candidate – for the post.
Paudel’s election led to the formation of a new coalition between Dahal’s Maoist Centre party and the Nepali Congress party, which is a centrist outfit.
Nepalis, including the country’s politicians, often travel to India for medical treatment as their southern neighbour can provide better medical facilities.
