Kathmandu: In an election that mauled former PMs, dynastic heirs and party strongmen, the Balendra 'Balen' Shah wave did not spare Nepal’s richest face either. Binod Chaudhary, the country’s sole Forbes-listed billionaire, the face of the popular Wai Wai noodles empire and sitting Nepali Congress MP from Nawalparasi West-1 in Lumbini province, was trounced by Rastriya Swatantra Party’s Bikram Khanal, who polled 45,241 votes to Chaudhary’s 9,502.
The scale of the defeat made the result stand out even in an election crowded with symbolic losses. Chaudhary was not a first-time entrant testing whether business success could convert into votes. He had earlier entered parliament through the proportional representation system and then won Nawalparasi West-1 in 2022 as a direct Nepali Congress candidate.
Releasing a public report card on his parliamentary performance before the vote, Chaudhary said it was “the right of the voter to ask questions” and that he was prepared to stand before “the court of the people” and answer for every commitment he had made.
The Himalayan nation's wealthiest man also tried to cut through the billionaire image more directly. In one campaign appearance, Chaudhary said that "even owning a private jet does not matter if a person cannot comfortably sit on a mat, a cot or the floor with ordinary people". He wanted voters to see him not as a tycoon insulated by wealth, but as a representative still capable of public connection.
But the electorate appeared unmoved by that pitch.
"In an era of Balen Shah, authenticity is the only currency that isn't inflating. You can’t spend three years in a private jet and then expect the voters to believe you’ve missed the smell of the mud. Chaudhary tried to bridge the gap with words, but voters used the ballot to say the gap was already too wide," a political commentator in Lumbini wrote after the result was announced on Sunday.
Khanal is a veteran politician with more than four decades in public life. At one point, he served as general secretary of Nepali Congress in Lumbini province. He shifted to RSP only after being denied a ticket by Congress in 2022.
"We didn't just vote for a new face; we voted against the idea that wealth is a qualification for leadership," Gen Z activist Rakshya Bam, 26, told TOI.
