The winter session of the House of Representatives is set to start on Friday. The House was prorogued on September 16 upon completing the budget session.

The winter session is set to provide the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), the fourth largest in the House, a sobering reminder of the absence of its leader Rabi Lamichhane from Parliament.

On December 22, the District Government Attorney Office in Kaski filed cases against Lamichhane and 30 other individuals at the Kaski District Court in connection with the Suryadarshan Cooperative fraud case. The next day, the House suspended Lamichhane’s lawmaker position. Since then, the RSP has been without the parliamentary party leader.

Even if RSP appointed Dol Prasad (DP) Aryal as an acting president effective from December 22 based on Article 25 (4) (a) (9) of the party’s statute, it hasn’t appointed its parliamentary party leader.

Earlier, RSP leaders had claimed that the party would also finalise the issue of the parliamentary party leader before the start of the winter session of Parliament. However, with just two days left for the start of the winter session of Parliament, the party has not done much work in that direction.

Since there is no legal situation that would hinder the party from working effectively in the absence of the parliamentary party leader, it is currently not bothered about appointing one, party leaders say.

Biraj Bhakta Shrestha, the deputy parliamentary party leader of RSP, will lead the party in the Parliament, acting President Aryal said. “So we are not going into the process of selecting the leader of the parliamentary party right now,” Aryal said. “If the time shows the need, we can do it at that time, but not now.”

Another RSP leader, Shishir Khanal, says that the party will not take any decision on the parliamentary party leader until the case against party president Lamichhane is resolved. Out of the five district courts that have cases against him, three have released him on bail. The party is waiting for the verdict of two other district courts.

“If the courts decide to send him to custody, the party might look forward to appointing the parliamentary party leader,” Khanal said. “If not, the issue will automatically be dismissed.”

On October 18, Nepal Police had arrested Lamichhane in connection with an investigation into cooperative fraud and organised crime and money laundering charges, and took him to the Kaski district police office where he was in remand for 84 days.

While the district courts in Kaski, Kathmandu and Rupandehi have released Lamichhane on bail, he still has two more allegations to face in Chitwan and Parsa district courts.

Police had arrested him after he was accused of illegally diverting millions of rupees from cooperatives in the five districts to the Gorkha Media Network that operated the now-defunct Galaxy 4K TV, where he was managing director before he joined politics in June 2022.

Since Lamichhane’s suspension, appointing parliamentary party leaders has emerged as a knotty issue in the RSP.

“Since more than two people within the party are aspiring to be the parliamentary party leader, this issue is unlikely to be resolved immediately,” a RSP leader said on the condition of anonymity.

Earlier, after the Supreme Court annulled Lamichhane’s status as a lawmaker in January 2023, citing the invalidity of the citizenship certificate he produced to contest the parliamentary election, Aryal was given the role of acting party president while Biraj Bhakta Shrestha, the deputy leader of the party in Parliament, played the role of party leader until Lamichhane was reelected through the Chitwan-2 by-election.

The leader said that the absence of the parliamentary party leader would have little effect on the party’s presentation in Parliament’s winter session.

Claiming that the issues of corruption and irregularities have increased since the formation of the new government about six months ago, RSP leaders say that they will raise their voices against “the government’s wrongdoings”.

Aryal said that they will also raise questions regarding the recently issued ordinances.

The meeting of the opposition parties held a week ago also decided to oppose the ordinances in the winter session of the House. On the other hand, the ruling parties’ meeting held on Monday has decided to defend the ordinances. The government brought six different ordinances in the past month.

Aryal said that the party’s parliamentary party meeting on Wednesday will decide how it will present itself in the winter session of Parliament.

Aryal added that even though the RSP will raise its voice in Parliament in unison with other opposition political parties on the issue of ordinance, it might not be with the opposition parties on all issues. “They might have their own priorities and we have our own,” he said.