Bidya Bhattarai

Bidya Bhattarai (also Bidhya Bhattarai) is a Nepali politician and a past Minister of Education, Science and Technology of Nepal. Since 2019, she has been a member of the House of Representatives of the Federal Parliament of Nepal. She won the by-election of Kaski-2, a constituency that was made empty by the death of her husband, cabinet minister Rabindra Prasad Adhikari, in a helicopter crash in February 2019. She defeated her nearest rival, Khemraj Paudel of Nepali Congress, by a margin of more than 8,000 votes. She was re-elected in 2022 from the same constituency.

On 21 April 2025, Bidya Bhattarai resigned as the Minister of Education, Science and Technology following the 2025 Nepal Teachers Protest, where public school teachers demanded the passage of the School Education Bill. The protests had shut down thousands of schools across the country and intensified public pressure on the government. According to media reports, internal disagreements with the Prime Minister and Finance Minister regarding the bill's handling also contributed to her decision to step down. Her resignation was widely interpreted as a response to the government's failure to address teachers’ demands and delay in passing the School Education Bill.