Nepal Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli is set to embark on his three-day maiden visit to India on Friday. The Nepal Prime minister will be accompanied by his wife Radhika Shakya and an entourage of ministers, Members of Parliament (MPs), secretaries and other high-ranking officials of the Nepal Government.

The upcoming visit will provide an opportunity to the two sides to review the wide-ranging cooperative partnership, and to progress it further for the benefit of the two peoples, a Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) statement said.

It is convention for every new Nepali prime minister to make his first visit abroad to India. However, in a sign of the rough patch the bilateral relationship seems to be going through, Nepal's newly elected premier invited Pakistan's Prime Minister Shahid Khaqqan Abbasi as his first state guest in March this year.

Columnist Prashant Jha notes in his article for the Hindustan Times, "the visit comes after three years of deep acrimony between India and Oli and about six months of an intense effort by the two to patch up." K.P. Oli's government is an alliance of his party and the Maoists of Nepal which have traditionally been opposed by the Indian government. However, after Oli swept the general elections, New Delhi seeing Kathmandu's outreach to China has worked to mend the bilateral.

In an unprecedented move, India's Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj had visited Nepal to meet with Oli after the conclusion of elections to local bodies, provincial assemblies and federal Parliament but before he had been sworn in as prime minister. PM Narendra Modi has spoken to Oli twice on the phone before he became PM and once after he took office inviting him to visit India and reinforcing New Delhi's commitment to the Nepali government in office.

Oli is scheduled to hold discussions with the top leadership of India to discuss  issues including the previously signed treaties between Nepal and India and further make updates on  issues which require attention.

Later, he will visit Pantnagar in Uttarakhand and attend a program organised at Govind Ballabh Pant University of Agriculture and Technology.  External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj and other ministers will call on the Nepalese prime minister, the MEA said.

While briefing the House of Representatives in Kathmandu on March 3 prior to his trip to New Delhi, Oli had assured the house that he would not take any such steps which would create a feeling of distrust between the two historically connected nations.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Apr 06, 2018 09:44 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).