Bishnu Prasad Paudel

Bishnu Prasad Paudel (Nepali: विष्णुप्रसाद पौडेल) is a Nepalese politician, who is the vice-chairman of Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist–Leninist).^[1] Paudel served as the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance in the Third Dahal cabinet.^[2] He has earlier served as Deputy Prime Minister (2021), and headed other prominent Ministries such as Finance (2020-2021, 2015-2016), Home Affairs (2021), Industry (2021), Water (2021, 2008-2009, 1994-1999) and Defence (2011).

He is a member of the House of Representatives elected from Rupandehi district, Parliamentary Constituency 2, in the election of the Federal Parliament held in 2017. He won the election with a huge margin of 22,000 votes at that time. During the second Constituent Assembly Election in 2013, he defeated the former prime minister Baburam Bhattarai from Rupendehi 4.^[3]

Paudel previously successfully served as the Minister of Finance from 5 November 2015 to 1 August 2016 in the first cabinet of prime minister KP Sharma Oli. He also served as Minister of Defence from 6 February 2011 to 29 August 2011, under prime minister Jhala Nath Khanal and as the Minister for Water Resources from 18 August 2008 to 25 May 2009 under prime minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal. He has also served as the Minister for Youth, Sports and Culture in 1997 under prime minister Lokendra Bahadur Chand.