Six months after his reappointment as prime minister, Sher Bahadur Deuba has been asked to resign by the royal palace. It has charged him with failing to restore peace and of being unable to bridle the CPN (UML), which the palace believes is creating trouble. Deuba refused and the palace then reportedly told him he had to go. Arzu Deuba reportedly sent a message to the palace saying her husband would resign and that was when the king and queen attended a dinner hosted by the Deubas at Baluwatar on 19 November. The chairman of the World Hindu Federation, former General Bharat Keshar Simha was the one who told Deuba the king wanted him to step down. The palace is peeved the present coalition government has been a non-performer. It is angry at the way the UML opposed the government's decisions on the ordinance of the royal palace's expenditure, on holding elections and it raised the infamous issue of the Dasain expenses that the government doled out of the national coffer. Arzu Deuba has been given a seven-day deadline, which if missed, will result in the palace sacking the prime minister once again. To seek Deuba's resignation now appears to be a strategic move. If Deuba announced election dates he would put the palace in a fix because it wouldn't have an excuse to sack Deuba. It would be too late to sack him. When Deuba was reinstated six months ago, it was on condition that his government begin elections before mid-March.