It was a sight to behold. After hinting for days that he would not stay mum at the gross injustice being meted out to him, Rastriya Swatantra Party President Rabi Lamichhane organised a press conference on Sunday. Speaking before a swarm of journalists in what was a no-holds-barred verbal attack, he blamed everyone else but himself for his loss of the deputy prime minister and home minister position.

The leader of the third-largest party in the ruling alliance said he was pulling out of the coalition after Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal refused to restore him as home minister citing his possible passport-related prosecution.

Earlier on January 27, Lamichhane was forced to resign as deputy prime minister and home minister after the Supreme Court declared his Nepali citizenship invalid.

At the press conference, the RSP chief announced that his party had left the Pushpa Kamal Dahal-led Cabinet, even as it will continue to support the government from the outside.

The RSP’s joint meeting of its central committee and the parliamentary party had taken the decision earlier in the day.

According to multiple leaders from the ruling coalition, Lamichhane plucked his party out of the government even though other coalition leaders were ready to allocate any ministry besides home to a lawmaker from his party.

Following the RSP’s decision, the Minister for Education, Science and Technology Shishir Khanal, the Minister for Labour, Employment and Social Security Dol Prasad Aryal, as well as the Minister of State for Health and Population Dr Toshima Karki have tendered their resignations to Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal.

Ever since he got his Nepali citizenship again, Lamichhane had been lobbying hard to regain the Home Ministry and even sought the backing of CPN-UML chair KP Sharma Oli for the same.

“Sunday’s development proved two things—one, Lamichhane is a self-centred person and doesn’t want to lose his tight grip on the party,” Rajesh Gautam, an adjunct professor of political science at Tribhuvan University, told the Post. “Two, had he wanted, he could have sent other party leaders to the government.”

Gautam added that Lamichhane appears to have withdrawn from the government fearing that if any other RSP lawmaker was sent to the government as the leader of the party’s government component, he could lose control over the party.

Though the party pulled out of the Cabinet, Lamichhane told reporters at the press meet that his party will continue to support the Pushpa Kamal Dahal-led government.

Lamichhane, an elected member of Parliament, was appointed deputy prime minister and home minister of the Dahal government on December 26.

However, he was stripped of his positions as home minister, lawmaker as well as party president on January 27 after the Supreme Court said he had not fulfilled the legal process to acquire his Nepali citizenship. He was accused of holding dual citizenship and passports.

Lamichhane, who had acquired Nepali citizenship by descent in March 1994, became a US citizen in 2014. As per the Nepal Citizenship Act 2006 section 10 (1), any citizen of Nepal who voluntarily acquires citizenship of a foreign country automatically loses Nepali citizenship. Nevertheless, Lamichhane contested the November election on the basis of the citizenship certificate received in 1994 although it had become invalid after he became a US citizen.

Article 78 (1) of the constitution allows even a non-parliamentarian to become a minister. However, Article 78 (2) says that a non-parliamentarian minister should obtain membership of the Federal Parliament within six months from the date of taking oath as minister.

Though UML chief KP Sharma Oli was strongly lobbying to restore Lamichhane in the Cabinet, Prime Minister Dahal didn’t want him to continue as home minister as several issues related to Lamichhane’s citizenship and passports have yet to be resolved. Dahal and Oli held several rounds of meetings to find a compromise but failed.

Lamichhane repeatedly furnished an ultimatum to Prime Minister Dahal saying that if he is not reappointed home minister, his party would quit the government. And on Sunday, a miffed Lamichhane eventually decided to pull the party out of the government.

“We were discussing how the RSP could be given a ministry other than home, when the party announced its decision to quit the Cabinet,” Prithvi Subba Gurung, deputy general secretary of UML, told the Post. “The parties that gave the government a vote of confidence but did not participate in the government may also have played a role in the RSP’s abrupt exit from the government.”

During the press meet Lamichhane also stated that the prime minister had told the latter that he would not give the home portfolio to anyone from the RSP.

Prime Minister Dahal seems confident about the survival of his government with the largest party in Parliament, the Nepali Congress, backing him.

“Dahal’s refusal to give home portfolio to the RSP might have been triggered by Congress’ taunting comments that the Maoist Party could not secure powerful ministries for itself despite leading the government,” said Gurung.

At present UML leads key ministries like finance and foreign affairs. When the home ministry was with the RSP, the prime minister’s Maoist Center party had no key portfolios.

Political analysts believe Lamichhane dictated the party's decision-making process on Sunday. They said he might have feared a parallel power centre could emerge in the RSP if someone other than him led the party in the government.

“Lamichhane showed a self-centred tendency, he should have sent other leaders from the party to lead the party in the government,” political scientist Chandra Dev Bhatta told the Post.

Bhatta also termed some of Lamichhane’s expressions as irresponsible. “Lamichhane cursed the political leaders before he joined politics as a media personality,” he said. “After becoming a political leader he is now spitting venom at the media to cover up his own mistakes.”

During the press meet, Lamichhane made many unsubstantiated claims about some noted media personalities and leading media organisations.

He even threatened to encircle media houses if they ran stories with sensational headlines. He named some noted journalists and challenged them to contest elections against him from Chitwan-2.

Lamichhane admitted that he was speaking out of anger after being forced out of powerful positions. “It is true that I am speaking in a state of anger as I have lost powerful positions like deputy prime minister and home minister,” he said at the press meet.

Lamichhane accused the media fraternity of causing his exit as home minister and deputy prime minister and claimed that the media even ‘influenced’ the Supreme Court to pass an unusually swift judgement in his case. He, however, continued to praise politicians, especially Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal and UML chair KP Sharma Oli.

Even RSP leaders are unhappy with the way their party chief attacked the media, and have tried to distance themselves from his comments.

“Actually our party just wanted to say that the media should act responsibly and within democratic bounds,” said Ganesh Karki, a central committee member of the party. “But our president went far beyond attacking the media individually, the party won’t take responsibility for what is his personal matter.”

Former Supreme Court justice Balaram KC said Lamichhane being a former media person should have expressed gratitude to the media fraternity as he had no political base to join politics.

“Only dictators criticise the media. It is even more for those in power to respect the media,” KC told the Post.

KC also criticised Lamichhane for his personal attack on individual media personalities and organisations, saying that he has no knowledge of press freedom and nor any qualities to be a politician.

Media-related organisations including the Federation of Nepali Journalists and the Nepal Press Union have condemned the attack on the media fraternity by the former deputy prime minister and home minister Lamichhane, who is also the president of the fourth largest party in Parliament.

Issuing separate press statements, both the media organisations urged the party to respect the constitutional rights of the press.

The FNJ has taken strong exception to the threat issued against journalists and media organisations.

“The federation is seriously concerned that naming media organisations and media persons and issuing public threats against them increase security threats for them,” the federation said in its statement. “If any untoward incident happens due to Lamichhane’s statement, president Lamichhane and the Rastriya Swatantra Party must take responsibility.”