Rastriya Swatantra Party Chairman Rabi Lamichhane met with Prime Minister (PM) Pushpa Kamal Dahal and expressed his desire to return as Home Minister.
Lamichhane arrived in Baluwatar on Sunday night after acquiring Nepali citizenship and was reinstated as party chief the same day.
Noting that the case regarding his citizenship is over and the passport investigation will also end in a few days, Lamichhane requested Prime Minister Dahal to reappoint him as home minister after that, according to a Baluwatar source. Lamichhane argued that there should be no difficulty in appointing him as he would return to the House of Representatives (HoR) by winning the Chitwan-2 by-election.
Prime Minister Dahal gave no clear answer or any guarantees, telling Lamichhane that he would consult legal experts and the Electoral Commission on the matter.
CPN-UML Chairman KP Sharma Oli met Dahal in Baluwatar before that and there were reports that Oli pressured Dahal to reappoint Lamichhane as Home Minister. But the source said Oli did not press as hard or express his desire for Lamichhane’s reappointment, and the two leaders discussed only the impending presidential election.
According to reports, Prime Minister Dahal does not want to reinstate Lamichhane as interior minister. CPN (Maoist Center) leaders have been arguing that the party should keep the Interior Ministry, as it did not get any powerful ministry in the power-sharing deal in the ruling coalition.
But the Rastriya Swatantra Party, which now has 19 seats in the HoR after the High Court ruled Lamichhane ineligible to become a lawmaker, says the party should get the home ministry even if Lamichhane is not reinstated. “This problem has fallen to the RSP, not to other parties in the coalition. We have decided to authorize the party chairman to present to the coalition our position that the Home Office we got during the loot share should stay with us and maintain a dialogue about it.” RSP spokesman and general secretary Mukul Dhakal said after the central committee meeting on Sunday.
