Kathmandu: Home Minister Rabi Lamichhane addressed the federal parliament on Sunday, his first address after taking office as the Home Minister on March 6, making some unsubstantiated claims against the main opposition leaders, also venting his ire against Congress General Secretary Gagan Thapa.
Of late, Thapa and Lamichhane have been exchanging recrimination against each other and indulging in open war of words.
Main opposition Nepali Congress has been obstructing the House proceedings for over two months accusing the Home Minister of his involvement in cooperatives fraud cases. While the Home Minister had been demanding that he should be allowed to furnish clarifications on questions raised by Congress lawmakers in parliament through the parliament itself, Congress, by taking official decision through the party meeting, had been insisting that Lamichhane shall be allowed to speak in parliament only after formation of a parliamentary panel to probe the scam.
The House had been held hostage due to the standoff between the two sides.
A fortnight ago, Gagan Thapa and the Home Minister challenged each other to prove their points. “If you can prove me guilty, I will quit politics. Will you quit politics, if you cannot prove me guilty?” Lamichhane had challenged.
Home Minister Lamichhane on Sunday made accusations against a number of Congress leaders without explicitly mentioning their names but alluding to Gagan Thapa and Dhan Raj Gurung, two of the most vocal critics of the Home Minister in recent times, among others.
“If we are to form a probe committee targeting a specific individual simply based on media reports, there are some names making the rounds in media reports. Shall we make a probe committee on them too?” the Home Minister asked.
Attributing his statements to the media reports, he cited the cases of alleged involvement of Gagan Thapa while he was a student leader and later Health Minister. He spoke about corruption in park construction at Tri Chandra Campus while Thapa was the president of Student Union of Tri Chandra Campus, irregularities in goat farming funded by international NGO, Pact, allegation of bribery for appointing a professor chancellor of BP Koirala Health Institute, Red passport scam and so on.
Are we to form a probe panel on such cases based on the media reports? Home minister asked.
The Home Minister said that he has no role in the cooperative fraud scam and that he is innocent.
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