Former Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister Rabi Lamichhane arrested from his party office

Kathmandu: Police arrested Rabi Lamichhane, the president of Rastriya Swatantra Party and former Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister, on charge of embezzling the cooperatives funds Friday evening. Police took him under control from the party office based in Kathmandu and he will be taken to Pokhara for further investigation.

Lamichhane was the home minister in two previous coalition governments—led by UML and Maoist Center in 2022 and again by Maoist Center and CPN-UML in 2024.

Though the alleged involvement of the former home minister in the cooperatives funds scam was reported way back, both CPN-UML and Maoist Center defended Lamichhane and looked happy to make him and RSP a part of the coalitions they led.

Nepali Congress obstructed the House proceedings for around three months demanding the formation of a parliamentary probe committee to investigate alleged involvement of Lamichhane in cooperatives scam.

Nepali Congress and UML came to the same page after they built a coalition to dislodge Pushpa Kamal Dahal from the government—of which both UML  and RSP were coalition partners–in July.

The parliamentary committee formed to  investigate the cooperatives fund misuse scam submitted the report to the government in September recommending necessary actions against all those who were accused of misusing the cooperatives funds, including Lamichhane.  The probe committee recommended that Lamichhane should be held accountable for ‘mis/using’ the funds that came to Gorkha Media Network from different cooperatives, when Lamichhane was the managing director of that media company.

Rs 650 million is said to have been transferred to Gorkha Media Network from different cooperatives while Lamichhane was the MD of that media company from which he resigned to form the RSP in 2022. 

According to the parliamentary probe committee, a total of 63 billion rupees was embezzled by cooperative owners of different cooperatives across the country.

Editor’s note: This is an updated version. We apologize for publishing a misleading subheading in the previous version.