KATHMANDU: In June 2022, soon after Balendra ‘Balen’ Shah took his first step from the hip hop scene into public office, becoming Kathmandu’s youngest mayor at 32, former prime minister KP Sharma Oli — then UML chairman and leader of Opposition — gifted him a tabla. Months later, speaking at the Nepal Literature Festival in Pokhara on Dec 23, 2022, he narrated the story, saying he had learnt that "Balen’s clay tabla had broken while shifting to the capital and so gave him an unbreakable metal one".
That old exchange returned with biting irony on Saturday night. After the final Jhapa-5 result showed Balen defeating him by 68,348 votes to 18,734, a margin of almost 50,000, Oli congratulated him on social media, sharing the old photograph from their 2022 meeting — the same meeting at which he had gifted him the metal tabla. In the post, he wished 'Balen Babu' a successful five-year term.
