Nepal’s Deputy Prime Minister Bamdev Gautam, who is officiating as PM while Prachanda is in India, today warned of legal action against Land Reforms Minister Matrika Yadav who is leading an armed group to recapture land belonging to rival party supporters in Siraha district in the south.

Gautam asked the Maoist leadership to restrain Yadav who is being helped by armed Maoists who were supposed to be confined in designated cantonments under UN supervision.

With the Home portfolio also under him, Gautam issued a veiled threat that he would ask the administration to take necessary action against those involved in such a campaign. In short, he implied that Yadav could even be arrested if he did not behave.

But any such move may have serious political consequences. The Communist Party of Nepal-Maoists (CPN-M) and the Madheshi Janadhikar Forum (MJF) have been clashing in Siraha for the past nine days with the latter demanding that the land that the Maoists had illegally confiscated during the years of insurgency must be restored to the original holders. Two days after land was restored to the rightful owners, Yadav led a group of Maoists and “recaptured the land”, said Home ministry sources said.

Yadav, in the meantime, warned: “We will not tolerate Bamdev using force against the people.”

The Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML) and the MJF have agreed to lodge a complaint with Prime Minister Prachanda when he returns from India and seek Yadav’s ouster from the cabinet.