The Samajbadi Party Nepal suspended its lawmaker Pradip Yadav for six months on Tuesday, more than 45 days after he attended a controversial programme on Free Tibet in Europe without informing the party.

The party reached the decision after finding his clarification for attending a programme Free Tibet in the Latvian capital Riga ‘unsatisfactory’.

Accompanied by Iqabal Miya of the Rastriya Janata Party-Nepal, Yadav had participated in the convention of International Network of Parliamentarians on Free Tibet on the first week of May.

In a press statement on Tuesday, the Samajbadi Party Nepal has stated that party’s central executive committee meeting held on Monday under party Chairman Upendra Yadav decided to suspend lawmaker Yadav for six months.

Party’s Deputy General Secretary Prakash Adhikary, who also heads the party’s central office, said Yadav has been relieved of all his party responsibilities for six months after being found to have attended the function defying party’s policy.

If a parliamentarian has to visit a foreign country, he or she needs to obtain consent of the Speaker of the House of Representatives or the chairman of the National Assembly, detailing destination and purpose of the visit.

After being embroiled in controversy for their participation in the controversial event, the two lawmakers had organised a press meet on May 20 and claimed that they were unaware of the motive of the event and that were filled with remorse for attending it.

They lawmakers had also claimed that the organisers had kept them in the dark about the objective of the event.