KATHMANDU, APRIL 12

Rastriya Swatantra Party has terminated party lawmaker Dhaka Kumar Shrestha's general membership of the party, which means he will lose his membership of the House of Representatives.

RSP Chair Rabi Lamichhane told mediapersons at a press meet here today that his party would now initiate the process of electing Bindabasini Kanskar as the new lawmaker under the proportional representation system. Kansakar is an acid attack victim. The RSP had elected Shrestha under the PR election system.

Reading out the party's press statement Lamichhane said the party would cooperate with the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority and other concerned agencies in their investigation against Shrestha.

Responding to journalist's query, Lamichhane said his party took the decision to terminate Shrestha's membership as his testimony before the party had given the impression it was Shrestha's voice in the audio tape that had gone viral in the social media.

Lamichhane said that Shrestha had the right to appeal before the party's panel and if Shrestha proved his innocence in the court, he would be reinstated to the party position.

Lamichhane said his party should be appreciated for taking action against Shrestha as there were instances when similar audio tapes involving other parties' leaders had surfaced, but the parties concerned did not take action against the leader accused of corruption. Lamichhane said his party had given the slogan of zero tolerance against corruption and hence it did not tolerate any corruption-accused leader.

In response to a journalist's query, Lamichhane said Shrestha had threatened party leaders saying if the party took action against him, he would expose them. Lamichhane said he asked him to reveal the core team he had referred to in his telephonic conversation with Durga Prasai, but Shrestha did not name anybody. If he reveals anybody as my core team with evidence, our party will take action against him/her, Lamichhane added.

In the purported audio tape, Shrestha is heard telling Prasai that he was asked by Lamichhane's core team to give 20-25 million rupees if he wanted to become health minister.

Earlier, Shrestha had held a press briefing and said that release of audiotape on the eve of byelection was an attempt to defame the party and defeat the party in all three parliamentary constituencies where by-elections were being held on April 23. He apologised for the setback suffered by his party due to the purported telephonic conversation.

'Release of the audio conversation (recorded in January) at this time is nothing but an attempt to defame the party and defeat it in the by-election,'

Shrestha said and added that he would speak to the public once he got clean chit from the judiciary.

'It's easy to produce a doctored tape these days. This audio tape contains edited voice and no one should be misled by the audio,' Shestha said. Shrestha said he had already initiated legal action against those involved in the audio tape.

He, however, did not take questions even when asked that he himself had admitted that the purported conversation took place between him and businessperson Durga Prasai.

A version of this article appears in the print on April 13, 2023, of The Himalayan Times..