Bhutanese refugee scam takes toll; ex-Nepal Prime Minister Oli in firing line

KATHMANDU: In a major setback to Nepal's big political parties, which appear to be losing popular support, some of the key leaders of the ruling Nepali Congress and the main opposition CPN (UML) faced criminal charges for their alleged involvement in a fake Bhutanese refugees scam.

On May 24, the District Attorney Office, Kathmandu, filed criminal cases at Kathmandu District Court against 30 individuals, including former Deputy Prime Minister Top Bahadur Rayamajhi and former home minister Bal Krishna Khand, accusing them of their involvement in collecting money from several people with the promise of sending them to the US in disguise as Bhutanese refugees.

Since the scandal broke out, the UML has suspended Rayamajhi from the party's leadership position, where he was a secretary at the central secretariat, the high command of the party. But Khand continues to remain a central working communist member of the ruling Nepali Congress despite the scandal.

Rayamajhi's son Sandeep and former Home Minister and UML Vice-chairperson Ram Bahadur Thapa's son Prateek have also been implicated in the scam.

It is one of the rare incidents where senior leaders of the major political parties have been implicated in criminal charges. They have been charged with four types of crimes: treason, organised crime, fraud, and forgery.

Of nearly 120,000 Bhutanese refugees staying in different camps in western Nepal since the early 1990s, as many as 113,500 were resettled to eight countries from 2007 to 2016 due to the lack of voluntary repatriation prospects, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Even though the UNHCR closed the chapter on resettling the leftover refugees in the third country, the Nepal government formed a task force in 2019 to recommend how to resettle the refugees who were supposed to be resettled in the third country but were left behind.

But the defendants made efforts to send the Nepalis to the US in disguise as Bhutanese refugees after collecting millions of rupees from people. The busting of the plan led to the prosecution of senior political leaders, Home Ministry officials, and others.

The incident has taken place at a time when popular support for the established political parties appears to be waning and new political forces are emerging.

Nepal's political analysts said that it is a major setback to the country's major political parties as they are losing credibility and new political forces like the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) are emerging and gaining support among the masses.

The RSP, founded by former journalist Rabi Lamichane in June last year, is now the fourth-largest political party in Nepal, with 21 seats out of 275 in the country's House of Representatives. The Nepali Congress, UML, and CPN (Maoist Centre) are the major three parties.

The growing popularity of the RSP was evident when the party won two of the three vacant seats in the House of Representatives with wide margins in the by-elections held on April 23.

"In my view, the biggest beneficiary of this scam will be RSP," Muma Ram Khanal, a political analyst, told the India Narrative. "The scam highlighted the political decay of the major three parties—the Nepali Congress, UML, and the Maoist Centre—even though none of the Maoist leaders have so far been implicated in the scam."

He said that people also consider the Maoists to be part of the establishment, which has a bad image when it comes to corruption and irregularities.

"Amid a crisis of confidence towards major political parties, a fertile ground for alternative forces to grow was being prepared before the last elections in November," said Khanal. "Now, the graph of mistrust towards the major parties grew further, widening the road for alternative forces to emerge and flourish."

But the ruling Maoist Centre appears to be making all efforts to take credit for the prosecution of those allegedly involved in the scam.

Prime Minister and Chairperson of the Maoist Centre Pushpa Kamal Dahal said at an event in Kathmandu on Saturday that he had jumped into the fight against corruption like he did when his party launched a 'people's war' between 2006 and 2016 against the state.

Rekha Sharma, minister for communication and information technology from the same party, said at the same event that the government was facing pressure from all sides to launch a crusade against corruption.

Responding to the lawmakers at the parliament on May 27, Prime Minister Dahal said his government would not tremble under any pressure to give up action against the corrupt. "Those involved in the fake refugee scam will be punished at any cost," he said.

However, political analyst Khanal said the ruling Maoist Party is unlikely to take much benefit because former Deputy Prime Minister Rayamajhi has its roots in the Maoist Party, and former Home Minister Ram Bahadur Thapa, whose son has also been implicated in the case, was also the senior Maoist leader before he switched to the UML's fold. "Technically, they are not with the Maoist Party now. But their history is associated with the Maoist Party, and the scam is unlikely to benefit Dahal's party," he said.

Analysts said that former ministers Sher Bahadur Deuba, president of the ruling Nepali Congress, and KP Sharma Oli, chairperson of the main opposition UML, suffered the biggest setback from the scam.

Recently, an audio tape appeared on social media that suggested Deuba's wife, Arzu Rana, also allegedly received cash from racketeers who were making all efforts to send fake Bhutanese refugees to the US. Oli's former advisor, Ajaya Kranti Shakya, also allegedly received NPR 10 million, as per the statement of a defendant in the case. (IANS)

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