The NCP government is widely perceived to have been a failure in governance, presided over corruption in high places, and in the inability to deliver services during the health and economic emergencies caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Despite this, the NC was seen to be immersed in its own power struggle between Sher Bahadur Deuba and Ram Chandra Poudel. It has not been able to fill the vacuum left by the NCP at a time when Hindu-right groups with tacit support from the Rastriya Prajatantra party (RPP) have been staging ever-bigger rallies across the country to scrap the secular republican constitution.
The NC appears to be wary about the RPP pulling the rug from underneath it, if it does not act.