The arrest of former home minister Rabi Lamichhane, who is also the chairman of the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), has triggered widespread concerns and reactions from different political party leaders. A team of Nepal Police’s Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) arrested Lamichhane from the RSP’s headquarters in Banasthali, Kathmandu on Friday evening.

Lamichhane was apprehended to investigate his alleged involvement in cooperative fraud and organised crime. He was subsequently taken by road to the District Police Office in Kaski.

A seven-member parliamentary special committee formed in May to investigate the cooperatives scam recommended legal actions against Lamichhane and three other individuals for their involvement in cooperative frauds. He faces allegations of misappropriating funds from a cooperative while serving as the managing director of the Gorkha Media Network that ran now-defunct Galaxy 4k Television before joining politics in June 2022.

While leaders of ruling Nepali Congress and CPN-UML have remained silent on his arrest, there has been a mixed reaction among other party leaders.

Speaking with the Post, Nepali Congress spokesperson Prakash Sharan Mahat said that the investigation agencies arrested Lamichhane as per the finding and recommendation of the parliamentary probe committee.

“The report is public now and it was signed by a member of the RSP too,” Mahat said. “Besides the report of the parliamentary committee, the investigating agencies might have collected additional evidence and that must have created a ground for the police to arrest Lamichhane.”

Meanwhile, Surya Thapa, who led the parliamentary special committee to probe the crisis-ridden cooperatives, has criticised the RSP leadership for their reaction after Lamichhane’s arrest. RSP leaders have said that Lamichhane’s arrest was motivated by political vendetta. Likening their reaction to ‘an artless drama’, Thapa writes on Facebook, “After the ‘Clean Chit ra Safaai film’ flopped everywhere within a few days, a new artless drama is being staged—‘Vendetta!’”

Thapa had earlier come down heavily on Lamichhane and other RSP leaders when they claimed that the committee’s probe could not establish his involvement in cooperative scams.

After the Thapa-led committee submitted its report, Lamichhane and RSP leaders had claimed that the parliamentary committee had given a clean chit to him and his involvement in cooperatives fraud could not be established. But Thapa kept on challenging the claim.

In the wake of Lamichhane’s arrest, RSP cadres staged protests in Kathmandu, Pokhara and other parts of the country on Saturday. Addressing the protests, the RSP leaders attacked the leadership of the present government. Some RSP leaders like vice-president Swarnim Wagle and acting spokesperson Manish Jha, among others, condemned Nepali Congress General Secretary Gagan Thapa, and Foreign Minister Arzu Rana, among others.

Meanwhile, Deputy General Secretary of CPN (Maoist Centre) and former minister Barsha Man Pun has demanded the arrest of Nepali Congress vice-president Dhanraj Gurung and UML lawmaker Rishikesh Pokhrel, who is also the chair of Public Accounts Committee of the House of Representatives, two leaders who are also alleged to be involved in the cooperatives scam.

Speaking with reporters in Rolpa, Pun said that Gurung and Pokhrel should not be exempted and there should not be double standards in arresting the alleged in the cooperatives scam. “Whatever is happening with Rabi Lamichhane should also happen with Gurung and Rishikesh,” Pun said, according to a statement issued by his private secretariat.

Mahat, the Nepali Congress spokesperson, said that they are always open for any kind of investigation on Gurung. “Our party has never blocked any kind of investigation against him,” he said.

Former Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai, who is also the chairman of Nepal Samajbadi Party, said that Lamichanne should cooperate in the police investigation but he has full sympathy for him.

He said Lamichhane has to go through the investigation process even if there is no truth in the accusation he has faced.

“I have my full sympathy for him as he himself has said that he would help in the investigation process,” Bhattarai said. “I think he has to help duly end the investigation process.” The former prime minister stated that because there is rule of law in a democracy, whoever is found guilty, big or small, should be punished.

The Kaski district police will produce Lamichanne in court on Sunday.