KATHMANDU: Opposition parties continued their protests in Tuesday’s House of Representatives (HoR) meeting, demanding that Prime Minister Balendra “Balen” Shah address the House and that his controversial remarks regarding the Nepal-India border be expunged from the parliamentary record.

The protests stem from an expression made by the Prime Minister on May 31, in which he claimed that Nepal had also encroached upon Indian territory.

Expressing solidarity with the opposition, Amresh Kumar Singh, a lawmaker from the ruling Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), also joined the protest.

Meanwhile, the opposition CPN (UML) declared that the protests will continue until the Prime Minister withdraws his “anti-national” statement.

Speaking at the meeting, UML lawmaker Ganesh Singh Thaguna asserted that while safeguarding national sovereignty is the government’s duty, the Prime Minister himself had undermined it by making false claims about Nepal encroaching on the border. He demanded the immediate withdrawal of the remarks and their removal from the parliament’s archives.

Lawmakers also strongly criticized recent events in the capital, linking them to an atmosphere of fear. UML’s Thaguna and Nepali Communist Party lawmaker Ramesh Malla drew attention to an incident on Monday where vehicles were strategically parked to block the offices of major media houses and the residences of political leaders.

They compared these actions to the state-sponsored terror tactics of the Panchayat era. “These actions, backed by state-protected individuals, are highly serious,” Malla said, criticizing the nominal 500-rupee fine levied on the offenders. “The state itself cannot create terror and then let perpetrators off with a minor fine.”

Adding to the criticism, Aren Rai of the Shram Sanskriti Party urged Prime Minister Shah to enter parliament and rectify his border statement.

Pointing to the Prime Minister’s history of provocative social media posts during his tenure as Kathmandu’s Mayor, Rai remarked, “Getting the Prime Minister to speak has been like trying to make a stone talk. When he was Mayor, he threatened on Facebook to burn down Singha Durbar, and later, parts of it actually caught fire. We must ensure a similar disaster doesn’t happen regarding our borders.”