Madhav Kumar Nepal (, ; born 6 March 1953), is a Nepalese politician and former Prime Minister of Nepal. He served as Prime Minister of Nepal from 25 May 2009 to 6 February 2011 for nearly two years. He previously served as the Deputy Prime Minister along with the charges of important ministries like Foreign Affairs and Defence in the cabinet of Man Mohan Adhikari. He was previously the executive General Secretary of Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) for 15 years. Since 18 August 2021, he has been serving as the chairman of the CPN (Unified-Socialist), a new party formed through split in CPN (UML) citing arrogance and monopoly of the party president KP Sharma Oli. Early life Madhav Kumar Nepal was born into a Brahmin family to Mangal Kumar and Durgadevi Upadhaya. He graduated in commerce from Tribhuvan University in 1973 and worked in banking and civil service before turning to full-time politics. He has two brothers, Binod Kumar Upadhyaya and Saroj Kumar Upadhyaya and three sisters, Kalika Bhandari, Indira Neupane and Basudha Pokharel. Political career Early political activism Nepal joined the communist movement in 1969 (2026 B.S.). During the underground struggle, he used party names such as 'Subodh', 'Sunil', 'Ranjan' and 'Bibek'. In 1971, he became a district committee member of the Nepal Revolutionary Organisation (Marxist-Leninist). At a conference held in Biratnagar June 7–8, 1975, Nepal was elected as a bureau member of the All Nepal Communist Revolutionary Coordination Committee (Marxist-Leninist). When the ANCRCC (ML) founded the Communist Party of Nepal (Marxist-Leninist) in 1978, Nepal was elected a politburo member of the new party. Multi-party democracy (1991–2006) He was the Deputy Prime Minister in the CPN (UML) minority government in 1994-1995 as well as the leader of the opposition in the National Assembly during the 1990s. He argued for the Nepal Civil War to be solved through talks and did not believe that mobilization of the army was the solution and as the leader of CPN (UML), was one of the three key Nepali leaders, the other two being prime minister Girija Prasad Koirala and rebel Maoist leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal 'Prachanda', crucial in bringing the Maoists into the peace process and signing the 12 point peace accords that ended the decade long war. Nepal was arrested in 2001 during a crackdown on anti-government protest. Following the palace massacre he called for Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala