EDITORIAL
With a noble mission, King Mahendra acquired the Lalita Niwas land by paying double the price of the then market rate for the construction of residences for the prime minister, chairman of the Rastriya Panchayat, chief justice, Royal Council chairman, among others. Navaraj Subedi, the then minister for construction and infrastructure development is still alive. King Mahendra had given the responsibility to locate suitable land for these constructions to Subedi. Subedi was the person who located the Lalita Niwas land and the King also visited the area and liked the location. The King asked the zonal commissioner to acquire that land by paying a price double the market price. In this way, the Lalita Niwas land was acquired by the Nepal government in 2026 BS, according to Subedi. Presently, residences of the prime minister, speaker, National Assembly chairman and chief justice of the Supreme Court have been constructed in this government-acquired land in Baluatar.
After the 1990 political change, those corrupt political leaders, corrupt bureaucracies and brokers developed an organized plan to capture the government land. According to Sharada Prasad Trital, former secretary of the government, who coordinated an investigation team, the looters’ gang even set ablaze the Zonal Commissioner’s building at Ratnapark and also deployed an agent to the Home Ministry to destroy the land accusation documents. However, one document was recovered from the Madan Pustakalaya (Library), which became strong evidence to probe the land scam.
Currently, the Crime Investigation Department under the Nepal Police is investigating the government land grab scam. According to the facts, then prime ministers Madhav Nepal, Baburam Bhattarai and many other leaders are involved in this scam. Trital has publicly expressed the view that the prime ministers cannot escape from their responsibility. Trital has emphasized that the sitting prime minister cannot say that he was unaware of such a big deal. Therefore, the two prime ministers are solely responsible for the disposal of government property, which is an antinational act.
We want a free-hand investigation by the CIB and we want full support from the court and the government authorities in investigating and punishing the culprits.
Similarly, we saw the fake Bhutanese refugee scam, which has destroyed the Nepali image in the international arena, on the other hand, it has exposed the mentality of those top-ranking political leaders and government officials. Indeed, such anomalies have flourished because of the wrong political system that we have practised. Indeed, the present political system has been introduced not to make the nation vibrant but to destroy the country and people’s existence as sovereign and independent.
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