Day after expulsion from party: Nepal’s Communist PM Oli visits Pashupatinath temple

A day after he was expelled from the Nepal Communist Party by a rival faction, Nepal Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli visited the famous temple of Lord Pashupatinath in Kathmandu on Monday.

Oli, a Communist, went to the temple with his wife Radhika Shakya and performed a “special puja” for one hour, according temple sources.

The Prime Minister’s visit came more than a month after Nepal President Bidhya Devi Bhandari went to the temple on December 16, the day it was reopened to the public after having been shut for months due to the coronavirus outbreak. Bhandari had on that occasion performed a “kshama puja” to seek the deity’s forgiveness for having closed the temple.