Balendra Shah's RSP ushers in a fresh age, signals new chapter between India and Nepal

New Delhi: He used crude language for both India and China in a late-night social media post in November 2025. But the Rashtriya Swatantra Party, which he has now led to a landslide victory in the recent Pratinidhi Sabha elections in Nepal, has promised to strive for transforming the tiny nation into a ‘vibrant bridge’ between the two giants of Asia.

With Balendra Shah set to take the helm of the new government in Kathmandu, New Delhi is cautiously watching the meteoric rise of the 35-year-old rapper-turned-politician and weighing its implications for India-Nepal relations.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated the people and Government of Nepal on the successful and peaceful conduct of elections. “It is heartening to see my Nepali sisters and brothers exercise their democratic rights so vibrantly. This historic milestone is a proud moment in Nepal’s democratic journey,” he wrote on X.

New Delhi is likely to wait for the official declaration of the election results before congratulating Shah and the RSP for the victory.

Modi, however, promised that India, as a close friend and neighbour, would remain steadfast in its commitment to working closely with the people and the new government of Nepal “to scale new heights of shared peace, progress and prosperity”.

India had hailed the Gen Z uprising in Nepal in September 2025, with the prime minister himself lauding the youths of the neighbouring country for what he called “the advent of the new dawn”.

Shah, an alumnus of Visvesvaraya Technological University in Karnataka, and the RSP rode the wave of aspirations triggered by the Gen Z uprising, which had, in September 2025, swept Nepal and overthrown the government led by K P Sharma Oli of the Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist-Leninist) or CPN-UML.

The RSP – founded by journalist-turned-politician Rabi Lamichhane in 2022 – leveraged on Gen Z discontent against traditional parties, promised governance reform, fight to root out corruption, creation of jobs, better healthcare and education, and digital services.

The party promised to pursue a Nepal First foreign policy, with the focus on protecting the sovereignty and dignity of the nation and transforming it from a “buffer state” into a “vibrant bridge” between India and China.

New Delhi is likely to focus more on addressing the aspirations of the youths of Nepal in its engagement with Balen Shah’s government in Kathmandu.

Shah beat Oli in the Jhapa 5 constituency, the pocket-borough of the former prime minister. Oli’s party, CPN-UML, has so far won only three of the total 165 Pratinidhi Sabha seats to be filled by direct election through the first-past-the-post voting, while the RSP won in 61 constituencies and was on track to win in 61 more, according to the latest reports, although the results would be officially declared early next week.

Nepal’s 275-member lower house comprises 165 directly elected members and 110 chosen through proportional representation. The Nepali Communist Party, born out of the November 2025 merger of several parties and led by another former prime minister, Pushpa Kamal Dahal a.k.a. Prachanda, could win only two seats and was leading in nine other constituencies. The Nepali Congress won in 10 and secured leads in nine others, clearly ceding its centrist space to the RSP.

The decimation of the communist parties, particularly the CPN (UML), in Nepal is good news for India, given its interest in limiting China’s influence in South Asia.

Oli’s relations with New Delhi had turned sour during his second term as the prime minister. In April–May 2020, amid the India-China military stand-off along the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh, Kathmandu had lodged a protest with New Delhi over a new 80-km road built by India from Dharchula in Uttarakhand to the Lipulekh Pass tri-junction, alleging it passed through the territory of Nepal.

New Delhi had dismissed the claim, but Oli’s government in Kathmandu had issued a new map showing nearly 400 sq km of areas in Kalapani, Lipulekh and Limpiyadhura as part of Nepal.

During Oli’s visit to Beijing in December 2024, Nepal and China officially signed the Belt and Road Initiative Cooperation Framework.

The pro-China approach of Prachanda, a former insurgent leader, during his first term as the prime minister, triggered concerns in India. He, however, took a more balanced approach in his subsequent stints at the helm of the government in Nepal.

China had played a key role in uniting the main communist parties of Nepal – Oli’s CPN (UML) and Prachanda’s Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre).