By Our Reporter
The budget session of the Federal Parliament is beginning from Friday. However, there is uncertain whether the session will run smoothly and will the government be able to table the new budget by May 28 as provisioned by the constitution? It is because the Nepali Congress has warned of disrupting the budget session if a parliamentary committee was not formed to investigate into the involvement of Home Minister Rabi Lamichhane in embezzling the money of cooperatives. The party warned this during the winter session which the government prorogued suddenly to avoid the NC’s pressure to form the committee.
Considering the possible disruption of House proceedings, Speaker Devraj Ghimire held a meeting with the Parliamentary Party leaders of the major parties on Tuesday. However, the meeting concluded inclusively.
In the meeting held at the Chamber of the Speaker in Singha Durbar, the party leaders failed to reach any conclusion when NC did not budge from its stance of forming the parliamentary committee solely to investigate Home Minister Lamichhane, and UML chair KP Oli and RSP President Rabi Lamichhane outright rejected the demand.
Although Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal floated the idea of forming a parliamentary committee to investigate the overall cases of cooperatives, NC refused it and demanded that Lamchhane should be investigated through such a committee. When Oli tried to stop NC chief whip Ramesh Lekhak from speaking, NC president Deuba, as reported by media, became angry and said the formation of the committee on Lamichhane was the bottom line of his party.
After NC reiterated its stance, the Speaker had called the meeting for Tuesday, but it failed to convince NC. Now PM Dahal is in a difficult situation because he can neither ignore the NC’s demand nor can he form the committee because formation of the committee can lead to the fall of the government, because Lamichhane had warned of resigning if such a committee is formed. And if the committee is not formed, the House cannot function if the NC disrupts it. However, PM Dahal, in the long run, will have no option but to form the committee and investigate into Lamichhane as demanded by NC. The government cannot move ahead by ignoring the powerful opposition party for a long time.
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