The Wire Staff 
New Delhi: Barely a month after four Rashtriya Swatantra Party (RSP) legislators were sworn in to be part of the Pushpa Kamal Dahal government in Nepal, the party has decided to vacate these posts.
According to local news reports, RSP’s decision to quit the Dahal government was taken after the prime minister refused to re-appoint the party’s president, Rabi Lamichhane, as the country’s home minister.
On December 26, Lamichhane was appointed Nepal’s deputy prime minister and home minister. A former journalist, Lamichhane became an important figure in government formation after his party won 20 seats in the recent general elections. However, a controversy soon surrounded Lamichhane after media reports appeared doubting his Nepali citizenship.
On January 27, the country’s Supreme Court stripped Lamichhane of his citizenship. According to a Kathmandu Post report, the apex court “stated that the citizenship certificate he produced to contest the parliamentary election was invalid”. The report said the order led to his resignation from the posts of deputy prime minister and home minister, as also from the presidentship of his party, as it is mandatory to be a Nepali citizen to hold all these positions.
Two days later, Lamichhane was able to re-acquire his Nepali citizenship, after he gave up his American citizenship which he had got in 2014. His was a case of holding dual citizenship.
However, Prime Minister Dahal refused to re-appoint Lamichhane as the home minister. Though ruling alliance partner CPN (UML) chief and former prime minister K.P. Sharma Oli held several meetings with Dahal to restore Lamichhane in the cabinet, the prime minister refused to budge as certain issues regarding the dual passport case were yet to be resolved, said the Kathmandu Post.
It led the rest of the three ministers from RSP in the Dahal cabinet to put in their papers on February 5. The news report, quoting party leaders, said the decision so far is to quit only the government and not withdraw support to the Dahal government.
“Prime Minister Dahal seems confident about the survival of his government, with the largest party in Parliament, the Nepali Congress, backing him,” said the newspaper.