Kathmadnu, March 28 -- UML has demanded the immediate release of its chair KP Sharma Oli and Nepali Congress leader Ramesh Lekhak, describing their arrests as "illegal" and driven by a "political vendetta".

Following an emergency Secretariat meeting convened after the detentions, general secretary Shankar Pokharel said the party would challenge the move both legally and politically.

"We express our strongest condemnation of the biased and illegal arrest of our party chair and former prime minister KP Sharma Oli, alongside Congress leader and former home minister Ramesh Lekhak, carried out before dawn today," Pokharel said. "The party maintains that these arrests contravene democratic values and the rule of law."

The Secretariat has cal...