KATHMANDU, MAY 26
CPN-UML lawmakers obstructed Representatives today over CPN-MC lawmaker Lekhanath Dahal's remarks a day ago that then prime minister KP Sharma Oli had replaced the golden jalahari with brass jalahari at Pashupatinath temple.
UML Chief Whip Padam Giri told the HoR meeting that remarks against Oli were baseless.
He sought the government's answer, and also demanded that Dahal's remarks about jalahari be removed from the record of the Parliament.
He said the Parliament session would not continue until the government clarified whether the jalahari installed at the sanctum sanctorum of the Pashupatinath temple was made of gold or brass.
Meanwhile, speaking afterGiri, UML MP and former Speaker Subas Chandra Nembang said ruling party MP Dahal's comments on UML Chair KP Sharma Oli were irresponsible and derogatory. He reiterated that he was not supposed to participate in the Parliament with serious allegations concerned with foul play during the installation of Pashupatinath's jalahari. He also asked Dahal to correct his expression.
UML lawmakers expressed grave concern after ruling party lawmaker made a serious accusation against them that they had committed corruption by installing jalahari made of brass instead of gold.
They demanded that the issue be investigated and truth be revealed.
Speaker Devraj Ghimire requested UML lawmakers repeatedly to take their seats but they continued to rise from their chairs, stalling House proceedings. UML lawmakers gathered in the well of the House and chanted slogans.
The speaker then adjourned the meeting for 20 minutes after his requests went unheeded even after the sloganeering that lasted for about five minutes.
The speaker could not reconvene the House meeting today.
In the House meeting held on May 24, Maoist Centre MP Lekhnath Dahal had alleged that there were various corruption scandals when the UML was in power. He had argued that Nepal's foreign debt had increased from 7 trillion to 17 trillion when KP Sharma Oli was the prime minister and accused him of corruption by installing jalahari made of brass in the sanctum sanctorum of Pashupatinath temple.
Enraged by the accusation, the UML disrupted the meeting.
During his tenure, the then prime minister and CPN-UML Chair KP Sharma Oli had decided to replace the silver jalahari with gold in the sanctum sanctorum of Pashupatinath temple.
On 25 January 2021, Oli visited Pashupatinath temple to perform a special puja. There, he had announced that his government would provide Rs 300 million to the temple to install a new golden jalahari and instructed the Ministry of Culture to allocate the amount.
On 24 February 2021, in the presence of the then President Bidhya Bhandari, a 96 kg gold jalahari was installed in the Shivalinga in the sanctum sanctorum of Pashupatinath temple. It had created controversy at that time too.
Narottam Baidya, former treasurer of Pashupati Area Development Trust, who was also a Bagmati Assembly member, and advocate Nikita Dhungana had filed writ petitions at the Supreme Court on 22 February 2021 against the government's decision to replace Pashupatinath temple's "jalahari" with a golden one.
The petitioners had argued that the government's decision went against the Ancient Monument Preservation Act 2013, which states that structures over 100 years old must be preserved in their original design.
After the jalhari was placed, the Supreme Court also issued an interim order saying that the jalhari should not be installed immediately.
The 59th annual report of the Auditor General suspected that KP Sharma Oli's government had lost gold worth crores of rupees when it installed a golden jalahari in Pashupatinath.
In that report, it has been stipulated that 10 kggold was embezzled while installing the golden jalahari in Pashupatinath temple.
The plan of Pashupati Area Development Trust, in 2013 was stopped immediately after the dispute over gold.
When Oli was the prime minister, the process of installing 108 kg gold for about 1 billion rupees had started. Although 96 kg of jalahari was installed, 12 kg gold remained to be added to it.
Although the Trust said 80 crore rupees was spent to install the 108 kg golden jalahari, the AG's report suspected that gold worth crores of rupees had been lost.
Revathiraman Adhikari, the spokesperson of Pashupati Area Development Trust, has said that no data and bills were found for installing the golden jalahari in Pashupatinath in February 2021.
A version of this article appears in the print on May 27, 2023, of The Himalayan Times.
