Time for renewal

There is still room for the comeback of regional parties in Madhesh.

Much is being made of the fact that of the 32 House of Representatives seats up for grabs from Madhesh province, the Madhesh-based parties this time got none. This is a remarkable reversal for these parties that together claimed over 80 seats in the first Constituent Assembly elections in 2008. Then, in the first parliamentary election in 2017 following the promulgation of the new constitution, they together won 33 of the 275 seats. This share climbed down a bit in the 2022 election—and now, the Madheshi parties have been wiped off the country’s electoral map. It is telling that while the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), with Balendra Shah as its prime ministerial candidate, won 30 of the 32 seats in Madhesh, the remaining two went to the Nepali Congress and the Nepali Communist Party. The appeal of identity politics has clearly gone down, particularly in its traditional heartland of Madhesh. This time, given the proposition of electing the first native Madheshi as prime minister and the RSP’s mantra of ‘action over ideology’, most of the Madheshi electorate lapped up the offer.