Nepal PM KP Sharma Oli asked to return land gifted by tycoon to build ruling party office

Four days after businessman Min Bahadur Gurung gifted a 5,300-sq m plot to Nepal Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli, to build office for Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML), party’s leader Binda Pandey urged him to return the land and save the “honour of the party”.

Pandey, a prominent trade union leader, said that such an act embarrasses over five lakh party members and insults nearly three million people, who voted for the CPN-UML in the last elections. Pandey also asked Oli to “correct the mistake” by returning the land to Gurung.

“While a businessman is expected to do philanthropic work under the corporate social responsibility, it is wrong to give land to a political party, and for the CPN-UML to accept it,” she said. She said this act has insulted the legacy of the party and its leaders like late Man Mohan Adhikary and Madan Bhandari.