Sanjeeb Phuyal is the Nepali Editor of Newschecker based in Kathmandu, Nepal. He brings over a decade of experience writing and editing news. In his previous stint, he worked as online editor for The Kathmandu Post. With the growth of social media platforms—and the ever-growing competition amongst media outlets to churn out breaking news, he feels that fact-checking every piece of information has become more essential today than ever before.
Claim
Rastriya Swatantra Party Chairman Rabi Lamichhane has been reinstated as Member of Parliament.
Fact
No, viral video is misleading.
A video claiming that Rastriyas Swatantra Party (RSP) Chairman Rabi Lamichhane has been reinstated as Member of Parliament (MP) is going viral on TikTok.
Earlier on December 23, 2024, the Federal Parliament Secretariat suspended Lamichhane after the Kaski District Attorney Office filed cases against 31 individuals including lawmaker Lamichhane at the Kaski District Court in connection with the Suryadarshan Cooperative fraud case.
Lamichhane faces charges of cooperatives fraud, organised crime and money laundering at the district court.
Against this backdrop, TikTok user @coolman_100_100 posted a video carrying an image of RSP Chair Rabi Lamichhane shaking hands with CPN (Maoist Centre) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’. Text superimposed on the video reads, “House Speaker Dev Raj Ghimire reinstated Rabi Lamichhane as lawmaker. RSP to raise the demand for the formation of a special committee to investigate fake Bhutanese refugees and Cambodia, among other corruption scandals.”
Audio accompanying the video presented in a news bulletin style says, “Finally, Rabi Lamichhane has been reinstated as lawmaker after House speaker Dev Raj Ghimire removed the suspension of Lamichhane’s Member of Parliament post.”
The video posted on February 2 has garnered 18.8k likes, 239 users have shared it and 454 people have commented until the time of publishing this article.
Newschecker found the claim to be misleading.
Fact Check /Verification
To check the veracity of the claim, Newschecker searched for news regarding the reinstatement of Rabi Lamichhane’s reinstatement as MP. However, the search didn’t yield any result resembling the viral claim.
We, then, looked up the website of the federal parliament and checked the latest notices. Though we found the previous notice regarding the suspension of Rabi Lamichhane as lawmaker, we didn’t find any notice about his reinstatement to MP post.
Further, we reached out to the spokesperson of Federal Parliament Eakram Giri and sent him the viral video. He confirmed that the claim made by the video that Rabi Lamichhane has been reinstated as lawmaker is false. Giri acknowledged that an application has been lodged to lift the suspension of Rabi Lamichhane’s lawmaker post. “But no decision has been made in response to the application.”
We also found a news article, dated January 31, published on My Republica online, which reported that RSP Chairman Rabi Lamichhane met House speaker Devraj Ghimire and requested him to lift his suspension from the post of MP.
Thus, our findings clearly showed that the House Speaker has not revoked the suspension of Rabi Lamichhane’s MP post.
Conclusion
No, the House Speaker Devraj Ghimire has not reinstated Rabi Lamichhane as MP. The viral video is false.
Sources
Kathmandu Post, Dec 24, 2024
My Republica, Jan 31, 2025
Federal Parliament of Nepal
Direct contact with Federal Parliament Spokesperson Eakram Giri
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Sanjeeb Phuyal is the Nepali Editor of Newschecker based in Kathmandu, Nepal. He brings over a decade of experience writing and editing news. In his previous stint, he worked as online editor for The Kathmandu Post. With the growth of social media platforms—and the ever-growing competition amongst media outlets to churn out breaking news, he feels that fact-checking every piece of information has become more essential today than ever before.
