Rastriya Swatantra Party’s prime ministerial candidate Balendra Shah on Tuesday expressed confidence in further deepening the “historic” relations between Nepal and India and making them more “result-oriented”.
The 35-year-old rapper-turned-politician is expected to become Nepal’s first Madhesi prime minister and also the youngest elected chief executive in the Himalayan nation.
Shah made the remarks in a social media post while thanking Prime Minister Narendra Modi for wishing the party electoral success.
“Thank you for the good wishes Honorable Prime Minister Narendra Modi,” he said in the post.
“I express my confidence that we will work together to strengthen, deepen and make the existing close and multidimensional historical relations between Nepal and India more result-oriented in the coming days,” he said.
The Revolutionary Socialist Party, formed in 2022, won 125 of the 165 seats under direct voting in Nepal’s parliamentary elections, with the counting of votes under the majority vote system ending on Tuesday, putting the party in a position to form a majority government.
Modi on Monday congratulated RSP chief Rabi Lamichhane and party leader Kabir Shah on their election victory and conveyed India’s commitment to work with them for the mutual prosperity, progress and well-being of the two countries.
Shah defeated four-time Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli by a large margin in the Communist Party of Nepal’s (Unified Marxist-Leninist) stronghold Jhapa 5 constituency in Nepal.
In his social media post, Shah also extended congratulations to the Indian government and people for “successfully winning two consecutive World Cup titles”.
India won the T20 World Cup on Sunday, beating New Zealand by 96 runs in the final in Ahmedabad, while also becoming the first team to win it on three occasions.
Nepal’s lower house of parliament has 275 seats.
While 165 members are elected through FPTP or direct voting, 110 members are elected through proportional representation, under which the counting of votes is still ongoing and is expected to conclude by Tuesday night.
However, a few more days will be needed to announce the final results under the proportional representation system and formally allocate seats to the different party candidates, according to the Election Commission.
Under the proportional representation system, the Revolutionary Socialist Party received 4,974,957 votes, followed by the Nepali Congress with 1,685,722 votes, the Communist Party of Nepal-UML with 1,402,157 votes, the Communist Party of Nepal with 763,633 votes, the Shram Sanskriti Party with 350,809 votes, and the Rastriya Prajatantra Party with 323,744 votes.
Based on the current trend, the RSP is likely to gain at least 50 seats under the proportional representation system, which would bring its total number of seats in the House of Representatives to about 175, experts said.
The party will be allowed to form a majority government under Article 76(1) of the Constitution of Nepal.
