The Nepali Congress has criticised the government’s “abrupt” prorogation of the winter session of parliament without heeding the opposition parties’ demand for a high-level parliamentary investigation into Home Minister Rabi Lamichhane’s alleged involvement in misuse of cooperative funds. The main opposition party said its demand for a parliamentary probe is non-negotiable.

A Congress parliamentary party meeting on Sunday concluded that the prorogation was an undemocratic and unparliamentary step taken with the intent of thwarting an investigation into the home minister.

“Abruptly ending the House session will only weaken the democratic system and the federal parliament,” reads the party’s statement issued after the meeting. “There is no reason [for the government] to avoid constituting an investigation panel if Lamichhane had no involvement [in the scam].”

The largest party in the lower house has been claiming that it has enough evidence to substantiate the home minister’s involvement in cooperative funds embezzlement.

The ruling parties on the other hand claim that the Congress is making a mountain out of a molehill by insisting on a parliamentary investigation into the scam.

“The Congress is demanding the formation of a parliamentary panel just to satisfy its ego,” accused CPN-UML chair KP Sharma Oli talking to reporters outside Parliament on Sunday. “No parliamentary investigation is needed [against Lamichhane].”

Parliamentary proceedings have been sabotaged as the ruling and the opposition parties remain divided over the formation of the House panel. The Congress, backed by the Rastriya Prajatantra Party and a few fringe parties, have been preventing discussion of bills in the lower house.

The last meeting of the winter session also ended without even entering the day’s agenda following their warnings. “A probe panel is our bottom line. We will raise our demand during the upcoming budget session as well,” said Min Bishwakarma, the party’s spokesperson. “Whether we allow the House to function depends on the government’s response to our demands. No probe committee means the House cannot move ahead.”

Although the winter session will conclude Sunday night, the budget session must be called by the first week of May.

Bishwakarma said it is the responsibility of the government to create a conducive environment to make the House effective through negotiations and discussions with the parties. But the present government has completely failed to fulfil its responsibility, he said.

Last week, Speaker Devraj Ghimire made failed attempts to clear the deadlock through discussions with the top leaders of various parties. He also held rounds of meetings with party whips and chief whips, but to no avail.

The Congress leadership has been claiming that deposits of six cooperatives were diverted to the Gorkha Media (wherein Lamichhane was once the shareholder and the managing director of a TV network under its wing).

The Congress has been demanding parliamentary investigation against Lamichhane since he took charge of the home ministry earlier last month.

The ruling parties, on the other hand, accuse the Congress of a double standard. When the Congress was still in government, it had stood behind Mohan Bahadur Basnet, then minister for health and population who was being investigated by the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority for his suspected involvement in corruption in the procurement of the Telecommunication Traffic Monitoring and Fraud Control System (Teramocs) for the Nepal Telecommunication Authority.

The Congress claims that over Rs800 million of 50,000 depositors in various cooperatives has been embezzled.

Victims of cooperatives on February 5 had filed a complaint at the District Police Office, Kaski against three people including Lamichhane. An investigation by the Pokhara Metropolitan City found that over Rs1.35 billion in public deposits in the cooperatives was embezzled.

Kantipur daily, the Post’s sister publication, ran a series of stories on Lamichhane’s involvement in the alleged misuse of cooperative deposits to buy shares of Gorkha Media Network, a media company.

Lamichhane, a former television host and managing director of the television channel co-founded by Gitendra Babu (GB) Rai, has been accused of embezzling hundreds of millions of rupees in collusion with Rai from different cooperatives in Kaski, Chitwan and Rupandehi.

Rai, who was the chairman of the Gorkha Media Network, the mother company of the television channel, is accused of illegally transferring Rs300 million from the Kaski-based Surya Darshan Cooperative, Rs110.71 million from Chitwan-based Sahara Cooperative, and Rs 100.74 million from Supreme Cooperative in Butwal (Rupandehi), without providing any collateral.