Kathmandu, April 17 -- The Rastriya Swatantra Party, once seen as a promising alternative force, continues to battle perceptions that it is a party of hangers-on centred around the personality cult of its President Rabi Lamichhane.

From the outset, RSP leaders tried to bill the party as an inclusive, youth-powered outfit with robust internal democracy and shared leadership.

Yet recent developments appear to substantiate the claims that the party in fact revolves around Lamichhane, also the former home minister who is currently in judicial custody on cooperative fraud charges.

In Lamichhane's absence, the leadership appears rudderless, struggling to finalise so much as the date of the party's general convention.

On March 27, the party ...