The first round of recruitment of Nepali youths for the Gorkha regiments of the Indian Army under the Agnipath scheme has had to be postponed on the request of the neighbouring country’s government which wants political consensus at home on a policy that has been contested in India itself.

The recruitment was scheduled to begin at Butwal in Lumbini province of the Himalayan nation on Thursday.

According to the Nepalese newspaper MyRepublica, foreign minister Narayan Khadka called India’s ambassador to Nepal, Naveen Srivastava, to the ministry on Wednesday and asked him to postpone the plan to recruit Nepali youths under the Agnipath scheme.

Khadka was quoted as saying that “all political parties in Nepal should have a unanimous view about the Agnipath scheme, which has become controversial in India itself, and requested India to stop the recruitment until all political parties in Nepal reach a consensus on the issue”.

A meeting of the Nepal parliament’s International Relations Committee is apparently being convened to allow all parties to weigh in on this issue as some are in favour of scrapping the 1947 Memorandum of Agreement on Recruitment of Gorkha Troops while others want the hiring to continue in the pre-Agnipath format. The Maoists in Nepal have for long wanted to scrap the agreement.

Asked for a response to the Agnipath-related developments in Nepal, external affairs ministry spokesman Arindam Bagchi told reporters at the weekly briefing: “We have been recruiting Gorkha soldiers to the Indian Army for a long time. And, we look forward to continuing to recruit Gorkha soldiers to the Indian Army under the Agnipath scheme.”

After India unveiled the Agnipath scheme to vociferous protests in June, the Indian Army is said to have sought Kathmandu’s permission for conducting the recruitment camps in Butwal and Dharan (from September 1) but the Sher Bahadur Deuba government kept the matter hanging till last week.

Kathmandu was upset about the fact that India did not consult Nepal before announcing the scheme under which youths will be recruited for four years, after which 75 per cent will be demobbed without pension and other benefits.