After cross party talks failed on Thursday, the meeting of the House of Representatives was postponed until Friday afternoon.

Speaker Devraj Ghimire postponed the meeting due to obstruction from opposition parties.

House deadlock has persisted for the past couple of weeks as the ruling alliance defies the opposition’s demand for the constitution of the probe committee and resignation of Home Minister Ramesh Lekhak over the visit visa scam.

The ruling party Nepali Congress has insisted that Lekhak should unconditionally be allowed to clarify the allegations against him in the House.

Among the opposition, the CPN (Maoist Centre) had softened its tone along with CPN (Unified Socialist) to allow Lekhak to speak in the House. However, the fourth largest party, Rastriya Swatantra Party, has been adamant over resignation of Lekhak and formation of a probe committee over the visit visa scam that has been rocking national politics for two weeks.

As soon as House meeting began on Thursday, lawmakers from the main opposition party CPN (Maoist Centre), as well as from opposition parties such as the Rastriya Swatantra Party, Rastriya Prajatantra Party, and CPN (Unified Socialist), stood up and obstructed the proceedings. Since May 26, the opposition parties have been disrupting the meetings, demanding the resignation of home minister Lekhak, alleging his involvement in the visit visa scandal.

Speaker Ghimire requested the lawmakers to take their seats, saying he would allocate time for them to speak based on party representation. However, the opposition lawmakers didn’t relent.

Following this, Speaker Ghimire removed all items from the agenda and postponed the meeting until Friday afternoon. Meanwhile, the Nepali Congress and CPN-UML have said that the Home Minister should be allowed to speak in the House.

In order to remove the impasse, leaders of the Nepali Congress and Rastriya Swatantra Party also held a meeting and discussed how to settle the row.

Nepali Congress was represented by Vice President Purna Bahadur Khadka and Chief Whip Shyam Kumar Ghimire, while RSP was represented by Vice President Swarnim Wagle and Chief Whip Santosh Pariyar.

“We made our position clear,” Pariyar told the Post after the meeting. “Since a scam related to visit visas is related to human trafficking and corruption, it cannot be ignored by the state, political parties and lawmakers.”

Pariyar added, “But they did not offer any concrete way-out of our concerns. The Congress leaders kept on asking to allow the home minister to speak in the House. We did not agree to that.”

Earlier on Thursday morning, the Maoist Centre also convened the office bearers’ meeting of the party where the issues related to House obstruction, among others, were discussed.

After the meeting, spokesperson Agni Sapkota clarified that the Maoist party is not in favour of putting pressure on any specific individual. “The main issue is investigation—we are not overly focused on any particular person,” Sapkota said. “As far as possible, we need to create an environment for investigation and also for discussion in Parliament—that was the conclusion of today’s meeting.”

He added that as a responsible opposition party, the Maoists will work toward a resolution in a creative and constructive manner.

Senior Vice President of CPN (Unified Socialist) Rajendra Pandey said that the opposition’s agenda of demanding the resignation of the home minister over the visit visa scandal has been nearly shelved. Speaking to journalists on the premises of Parliament building, he said a new condition has been put forward—that if the home minister speaks in the House, he must commit to investigating all related issues dating back to 2007.

“The resignation demand has more or less been put on hold,” Pandey said. “The ruling side is saying that an investigation can’t proceed now because the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority is already looking into the matter. However, when the Home Minister responds, he must take the concerns raised by the opposition seriously. The discussion is moving toward a comprehensive investigation covering everything since 2064 BS, once the CIAA completes its process.”