Dr. Prakash Sharan Mahat, an NC Central Committee member, joined the cabinet on June 4 and was appointed Minister of Energy on June 17. Mahat was nominated to the Constituent Assembly under the proportional representation system in April 2008. He previously served as State Minister of Foreign Affairs from July 2004 to January 2005 and as an advisor for then-Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba from July 2001 to October 2002.

A former General Secretary of the NC-affiliated Nepal Students Union (1984-88), Mahat has long been active in the party and was imprisoned several times before 1990 during the struggle for democracy. Mahat was born in November 1959
in Nuwakot, a district to the north of Kathmandu. He was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship in 1990 and holds a Ph.D. in economics from Southern Illinois University (1997).