Girija Prasad Koirala is a Nepalese politician. He headed the Nepali Congress and served as the Prime Minister of Nepal on four occasions, including from 1991 to 1994, 1998 to 1999, 2000 to 2001, and from 2006 to 2008. He was the Acting Head of State of Nepal between January 2007 and July 2008 as the country transitioned from a monarchy to a republic.
Later, in 1952 he became the President of the Morang District Nepali Congress and held that office until he was arrested and imprisoned by King Mahendra following the 1960 royal coup.Koirala was leading a democratic front composed of parties that supported and promoted liberal democratic principles and aspired to establishment of a long-term democratic form of governance in Nepal. Koirala, who was active in politics for over sixty years, was a pioneer of the Nepalese labour movement, having started a workers' movement in the Jute mills of his hometown, Biratnagar. In 1991 he became the first democratically elected Prime Minister since 1959, when his brother B. P. Koirala and the Nepali Congress party were swept into power in the country's first democratic election. Koirala died at his daughter's home on 20 March 2010 at the age of 85, having suffered from asthma and pulmonary disease.
