KATHMANDU: The meeting of the ruling coalition held at the Prime Minister’s residence in Baluwatar to strike a final deal on the expansion of the Council of Ministers ended inconclusively today as well.

Top-notch leaders of the ruling coalition Nepali Congress President and Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, Maoist Center Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’, leader Narayan Kaji Shrestha, CPN (Unified Socialist) Chairman Madhav Kumar Nepal and Janata Samajwadi Party (JSP) Chairman Upendra Yadav attended the meeting.

Instead of resolving the differences, a dispute arose between the CPN (Unified Socialist) and the Janata Samajwadi Party chairperson over who will get powerful ministries.

According to a leader who attended the meeting, Socialist Party Chairman Madhav Kumar Nepal had demanded that his party should get Ministry of Physical Infrastructure and Transport and the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supplies.

However, JSP Chairman Upendra Yadav said that one among these two ministries should be a given to his party.

According to Maoist Center leader Ganesh Sah, even though the distribution of ministries was said to finalized today, the meeting could not finalize it owing to some differences among the leaders.

A meeting of the ruling coalition also took place on Monday. The top leaders of all the five parties responsible for selecting the ministers were working to select the ministers “as soon as possible”.

Even though Prime Minister Deuba took over the leadership of the government on July 13, he has not been able to give a full shape to the cabinet.

Subsequent meetings could not find a way out as there was no consensus among the parties in the alliance on the distribution of ministries.