The meeting of the House of Representatives on Monday has been postponed until 11 am on Tuesday, following continuous obstructions by opposition lawmakers demanding the resignation of Home Minister Ramesh Lekhak over the ‘visit visa’ scandal.

Speaker Devraj Ghimire had earlier suspended the session for 30 minutes after protests broke out at the start of the meeting. However, as order could not be restored even after the brief recess, the sitting was formally adjourned through a notice.

The Speaker held discussions in his chamber with leaders from both the ruling and opposition parties in a bid to reach consensus, but the efforts were unsuccessful.

Lawmakers from opposition parties including the CPN (Maoist Centre), Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), and Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) staged the obstruction. They demanded that Minister Lekhak resign, alleging his involvement in organised corruption related to the abuse of visit visas at Tribhuvan International Airport.

RSP lawmaker Shishir Khanal demanded a high-level investigation commission to probe the alleged racket, claiming that innocent youths were being exploited under the guise of visit visas and that Lekhak had a conflict of interest due to his appointment of a controversial bureaucrat to the immigration department.

Maoist Centre lawmaker Barshaman Pun also called for the minister’s resignation on moral grounds.

Earlier in the meeting, Speaker Ghimire had allowed Nepali Congress chief whip Shyam Ghimire to speak on behalf of the ruling party, which led to further uproar, with RSP lawmakers shouting slogans and attempting to block ruling party MPs from addressing the floor.

The next sitting of the House has been scheduled for 11 am on May 28.