Nepali Congress general secretary and lawmaker Gagan Thapa recently claimed that during a recent speech at the House of Representatives, KP Sharma Oli, Communist Party of Nepal-UML chair, defended his move to dissolve Parliament and said it will be dissolved again and again.
Thapa made the claim at a function to inaugurate the offices of Kathmandu constituency No. 4 and provincial constituency on 28 February 2023. The full version of the speech in the program was uploaded on his YouTube channel on the same day.
Thapa’s speech in question was related to the collapse of the seven-party alliance including CPN-UML and the CPN (Maoist Center), which was formed on December 25, 2022.
Thapa said:
If you remember, our party president Sher Bahadur Deuba addressed the first meeting of Parliament as the leader of the largest party in Parliament. At the time, he did not refer to the government coalition. There was nothing bitter in his speech. The CPN-UML chair [KP Sharma Oli] spoke after him. He not only defended his move to dissolve Parliament, but he also remarked it will happen again and again. The political message inherent in the speech was that the alliance [formed on November 25, 2022] will collapse. It became clear to everyone. Therefore, what has happened [in politics] is right.
gagan thapa
What was the context?
As Nepal’s Prime Minister, KP Sharma Oli had recommended to President Bidhya Devi Bhandari that the House of Representatives be dissolved. President Bhandari authenticated the recommendations on both occasions–on December 20, 2020 and May 22, 2021. But Nepal’s Supreme Court declared Oli’s moves unconstitutional and reinstated Parliament.
During the general election on November 20, 2022, the CPN (Maoist Center) and the Nepali Congress along with various other parties formed an electoral alliance. But on December 25, 2022, Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’, chairman of the Maoist Center, changed sides and became prime minister from the seven-party alliance. He had agreed to support the CPN-UML for getting the posts of the Parliament Speaker and the President.
About two months after Dahal became prime minister, the CPN-Maoist Center switched coalition partners again and agreed on February 24, 2023 to support Ram Chandra Paudel, a Nepali Congress leader, for president. Following the turn of events, the seven-party alliance split up and a new eight-party alliance was formed on February 24, 2023. In this context, Thapa, the general secretary of NC, traced the collapse of the alliance to Oli’s statement on House dissolution.
Fact-check
We first watched the complete version of Thapa’s speech. He had referred to Oli’s address to the first sitting of Parliament on January 9, 2023. We then listened to Oli’s January 9, 2023 speech in Parliament.
Oli said:
The current coalition protects the Constitution. At one point, there was an uproar in Nepal. It deemed the House dissolution a regressive act. If that was the case, the UK, which is the progenitor of the parliamentary system, underwent regression several times. Let us all not be so sure that we know everything! Let us not interpret things to suit our interests. Parliament dissolution is not a regressive act. Taking away people’s rights… To go to the people for their rights to vote, seeking their mandate, and receiving order (to rule the country) from its sovereign people is not regression. It is not regressive to form a government in Parliament, to dissolve the government in the House. It’s regression when there’s conspiracy elsewhere [outside Parliament] to topple a government. The current coalition government doesn’t support regression. It will not try to form a government from outside Parliament.
kp sharma oli
On January 9, 2023, Oli defended the House dissolution in the first meeting after the elections. He claimed the move was not a regression.
Nepali Congress lawmaker Thapa is correct in referring to Oli’s speech to that extent. But in his 23-minute long speech, Oli did not say the House of Representatives would be dissolved again and again, as claimed by Thapa.
It is true that Oli defended House dissolution on January 9, 2023. He, however, did not say it will be dissolved again and again. Therefore, Nepal Check concludes Thapa’s claim is only half-true.
| Claim | Claimed by | Nepal Check Verdict |
| KP Sharma Oli, Chairman of CPN-UML, said in Parliament that House dissolution was right and it will be dissolved again and again. | Gagan Thapa, Nepali Congress general secretary and MP | Half- true |
NepalCheck.Org 
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