Over to home minister

Lekhak has a chance to implement the probe committee report he so earnestly championed.

As the Nepali Congress chief whip in Parliament, Ramesh Lekhak was among the most vocal advocates for the formation of a parliamentary committee to look into the irregularities in the cooperatives sector, with a particular focus on Gorkha Media Network. This was less than three months ago when the Congress was the main opposition. There had at the time been widespread media reporting on how the network chairman, GB Rai, and Managing Director, Rabi Lamichhane, had been involved in embezzling money from cooperatives and pumping it into the network’s Galaxy 4K television. The matter was urgent as Lamichhane was the serving deputy prime minister and home minister. Credible evidence had surfaced of the home minister trying to suppress police investigation into his personal involvement in the scam. Partly as a result of the relentless pressure from the likes of Lekhak and his party, such a committee indeed came into being on May 28. The same committee has now presented reams of evidence showing how Lamichhane misused money illegally brought into the network from various cooperatives. Lekhak, who has replaced Lamichhane as home minister, now has the chance to walk the talk and implement the recommendations of the parliamentary probe committee he so earnestly championed.