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Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) Chairman Rabi Lamichhane issued a “stern warning” to Shram Sanskriti Party (SSP) Chairman and MP Harka Sampang.
No, the viral clip is completely unrelated to Harka Sampang. It shows an excerpt from Rabi Lamichhane's speech delivered at the first national assembly of the RSP's central council in Kathmandu back in September 2024.
A video showing RSP Chairman and MP, Rabi Lamichhane, delivering an intense speech has been circulating on TikTok with superimposed text reading: “Rabi issued a stern warning to Harka Sampang. Harka Jee, please stop crying.”
This clip has surged in popularity amid ongoing parliamentary friction, where SSP lawmakers have been actively protesting and demanding the accountability of Prime Minister Balendra Shah and accusing him of being highly inefficient and disrespecting democratic parliamentary traditions.
The video posted on May 17 has garnered 23.1k likes, 1471 users have shared it and 1571 people have commented until the last count.
In his speech, Rabi Lamichhane is heard saying, “I say it with a warning to those who try to mudsling or conspire against the new parties, Rastriya Swatantra Party won’t remain a mute spectator. People have very high expectations of us, which is why our battle is big ,and our dreams are also big. Our steps are big, and the assaults on us are equally huge. I urge everyone in this hall today to be prepared for this. Many are still thinking that there are still some weak points from which I could be pulled down, and my fall will topple the RSP and that will clear their path. You don’t need to conspire to topple RSP. There is no way to topple the RSP other than in the election…”
To verify the claim, Newschecker extracted keyframes from the viral video and performed a reverse image search. When the initial image searches yielded no relevant results, we conducted a Nepali keyword search using phrases from Rabi Lamichhane’s speech. This led us to a September 17, 2024, article on Sidhakura Online, which matched the speech in the clip and revealed that Lamichhane was actually addressing the Rastriya Swatantra Party’s first central council national assembly.
A subsequent Google reverse image search on the article’s photo led us to two broadcast videos from the same day on YouTube.
The full 31-minute address on Nepal Khabar shows that Lamichhane’s speech focused entirely on defending his party against cooperative fraud allegations from major political rivals in 2024. At that time, Harka Sampang was the Mayor of Dharan Sub-metropolitan City, not a Member of Parliament.
Our review found no credible reports of Lamichhane issuing any such warning to Sampang after the latter was elected to the House of Representatives under the Shram Sanskriti Party. Therefore, the viral video is confirmed to be an old speech shared out of context.
Sources
– Sidha Kura Online (September 17, 2024)
– Nepalkhabar.com (September 17, 2024)
– Onlineshow Media (YouTube), September 17, 2024)
–Nepal Khabar YouTube
Misleading
