KATHMANDU: Nepali Congress leader Dr. Shekhar Koirala has expressed surprise that a minister who should have been dismissed was instead allowed to participate in the Cabinet meeting.

Through a Facebook post on Tuesday morning, Koirala indirectly pointed to Minister for Federal Affairs and General Administration Rajkumar Gupta, expressing astonishment that despite clear evidence in the bribery scandal, the minister was attending Cabinet meetings by sweet-talking the Prime Minister instead of being removed from office.

He also criticized his own party, the Nepali Congress, for being a silent spectator in the matter, and said the opposition has limited itself to ritualistic demands for resignation in Parliament.

He wrote: “Middlemen come early in the morning to the minister’s quarters and drop off a suitcase full of bribe money. Even after evidence is gathered against him, instead of being sacked, the minister joins the Cabinet meeting by pleasing the Prime Minister with sweet words.  The opposition demands only ceremonial resignations in the House, while we—the coalition partners from Nepali Congress—have become ‘silent witnesses’.”

Minister Gupta has been implicated in a bribery scandal after an audio recording surfaced in which he is heard negotiating bribes in exchange for transferring officials under the Ministry of Land Management.

Specifically, he allegedly demanded Rs 5.3 million to halt the transfer of the then-chief of the Kaski Land Revenue Office, and Rs 2.5 million to appoint CPN-UML Gandaki Province member Khem Bahadur Pun as chair of the Kaski Land Commission.

Minister Gupta also dragged Land Management, Cooperatives and Poverty Alleviation Minister Balram Adhikari into the case, but Minister Adhikari issued a clarification in Monday’s meeting of the House of Representatives.