Kathmandu, March 5 – As Nepal voted to determine its people's representatives in a high-stakes election held on Thursday, an entrepreneur and social media enthusiast pursued a unique approach to demonstrate that election campaigns need not be expensive to win a favorable mandate.
"Election campaigns can be done cheaply; I have proven this by keeping the total expenses limited to around Rs 5 lakh (approximately 3.1 lakh Indian rupees)," claimed Asheem Man Singh Basnyat, an independent candidate from Kathmandu 1.
This represents about a fifth of the maximum campaign spending officially allowed for candidates, which ranges from (Nepalese) Rs 25 lakh to Rs 33 lakh, and falls in the category with the lowest ceiling.
Perhaps the profile of this parliamentary constituency helped the 35-year-old tech entrepreneur launch a unique campaign on his maiden attempt at the polls.
According to Basnyat, it is the only parliamentary constituency in Nepal that is entirely within the Kathmandu Metropolitan area.
All other constituencies are either Metropolitan, Municipal, or even rural-municipal areas, making this one core urban.
It is also the smallest constituency in terms of landmass, with 48,489 registered voters, and "in the last two elections, the winner obtained slightly more than 6,000 votes, and it will likely be around that number this time as well," he added.
The 35-year-old holds a Master's degree in conflict, peace, and development studies and is a regional director at Pathao, a ride-hailing app introduced in Nepal by Basnyat and his friends in 2018.
The app has since become a leading ride-sharing and on-demand delivery platform.
"I have always been vocal about empowering youth, job creation, digitalization, and other aspects of our lives, particularly after the Covid pandemic struck six to seven years ago," he said.
Before entering politics formally, the young entrepreneur took legal action to introduce e-commerce in Nepal during the Covid lockdown.
"So, my activism began with seeking legal options for allowing e-commerce to operate during that period," Basnyat said.
"Historically, parties and candidates use a lot of print media space and workers, which cost a significant part of their total expenses. But I chose to focus on social media because it has been crucial in the last five to seven years, and I have been very active on such platforms, as are all the businesses I run," he added.
"It's not about placing advertisements, but creating content that will organically reach hundreds of thousands of people. It all started with a video where I declared my candidature, which was soon picked up by various media, including social media channels," Basnyat added.
"However, the pivotal point was when I obtained Squid Games masks from India, dressed up 10 people in the characters' outfits, and then made them walk around the streets of Kathmandu without informing anyone as part of my campaign," he said.
He came up with this idea during a door-to-door campaign when he knocked on a door, and the reaction was, "Oh! Another one has just arrived!"
This led him to make the voters seek him out, and "the Squid Games characters made them come out of their houses to find out what was going on."
"Incidentally, they had the triangle on their masks, which is also my election symbol. I also had the Squid Games characters drive around in a pick-up truck. This made people curious to know what was happening," Basnyat said.
The replica of the characters featured in the Korean game, which cost him a total of (Nepalese) Rs 18,000, made popular by streaming service apps.
"I acquired the masks from India, which cost me (Indian) Rs 199 each, and the costumes cost about (Nepalese) Rs 1,500," he shrugged, adding, "But it also generated a lot of media coverage about my campaign."
Spending Rs 5 lakh to acquire some 6,000 votes – will it work? The answer now lies in the ballot boxes.