Will work with India to further strengthen ties: Nepal’s Balen

Kathmandu: Rastriya Swatantra Party’s (RSP) prime ministerial candidate Balendra Shah on Tuesday expressed confidence in further deepening “historic” Nepal-India ties and making them more “outcome-oriented”.

The 35-year-old rapper-turned-politician is all set to become Nepal’s first Madhesi prime minister and also the Himalayan nation’s youngest elected executive head.

Shah made the remarks in a social media post while thanking PM Narendra Modi for his wishes on the party’s electoral success. “Thank you for the good wishes honourable Prime Minister Narendra Modi ji,” he said in the post. “I express my confidence that we will work together to further strengthen, deepen and make more outcome-oriented the historic, close, and multi-dimensional relations existing between Nepal and India in the coming days,” he said.

The RSP, formed in 2022, has won 125 of the 165 seats under direct voting in Nepal’s parliamentary polls as vote counting under the first-past-the-post (FPTP) system concluded on Tuesday.