Rastriya Swatantra Party Postpones Pokhara Election Rally Amid Security Concerns

Pokhara. The election rally of the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) has been postponed again. The district working committee of the RSP had scheduled a corner meeting today at Amar Singh Chaur in Pokhara, which has now been called off. A previous rally scheduled for the 10th was also postponed. Provincial General Secretary Navin Tripathi informed that both rallies were postponed due to security challenges. According to him, the party itself postponed the rally considering the notice issued by the District Administration Office and the security challenges.

The District Administration Office had issued a notice urging against organizing crowded events targeting the Holi festival. Tripathi explained that the rally was postponed considering the possibility of unrest at the end of the election period. 'It is the time of Holi. There could be disturbances. The administration has also issued a notice asking not to gather crowds,' he said, 'We postponed it because we don't want the campaign, which has been going well so far, to be ruined by a small reason at the very end.'

Tripathi stated that the general assembly scheduled for the 10th was also affected due to security challenges. He mentioned that after the incident where an CPN-UML flag was burned in Dang, security agencies perceived potential clashes and security challenges in Pokhara as well. 'At that time, in the context of the flag burning incident and the aggressive stance of CPN-UML cadres, security agencies requested restraint to prevent untoward incidents in the crowd,' he said.

Some argue that the RSP perceives cooperative victims as a threat in the Pokhara rally. There are approximately 40,000 cooperative victims in Kaski, and there are allegations that the funds of Surya Darshan Cooperative, in particular, were channeled to RSP Chairman Rabi Lamichhane and his media outlet, Gorkha Media. However, Lamichhane has consistently refuted these allegations. Lamichhane was arrested for investigation on Kartik 2 of the previous year and was released on a bail of 6.5 million rupees in the last week of Poush. Since then, cooperative victims have continued to hold protests against Lamichhane.

On Saturday, they also announced that they would not vote for anyone involved in cooperative fund fraud. The Cooperative Victims Struggle Committee and the management committee held a meeting and publicly declared that they would not vote for anyone who misappropriated cooperative funds, regardless of who they are. However, the RSP claims that the cooperative victims are not a threat. 'We do not face any threat from the cooperative victims. We are in regular dialogue,' says General Secretary Tripathi, 'In fact, we have received support from them. It is not a threat.'