Kathmandu, March 10 Rastriya Swatantra Party's (RSP) prime ministerial candidate Balendra Shah expressed confidence on Tuesday in further strengthening "historic" Nepal-India ties and making them more "outcome-oriented".
The 35-year-old rapper-turned-politician is set to become Nepal's first Madhesi prime minister and also the youngest elected executive head of the Himalayan nation.
Shah made the remarks in a social media post while thanking Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his congratulations on the party's electoral success.
"Thank you for the good wishes, honorable Prime Minister Narendra Modi," he said in the post.
"I am confident that we will work together to further strengthen, deepen, and make the historic, close, and multi-dimensional relations between Nepal and India more outcome-oriented 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 elections. With the first-past-the-post (FPTP) system vote counting concluded on Tuesday, the party is in a position to form a majority government.
Modi congratulated RSP chief Rabi Lamichhane and senior party leader Shah on Monday for their election victory, and conveyed India's commitment to work with them for the mutual prosperity, progress, and well-being of the two countries.
Shah defeated four-time prime minister K P Sharma Oli by a huge margin in the Jhapa-5 constituency, a stronghold of the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist–Leninist).
In his social media post, Shah also congratulated the Indian government and the Indian people for "successfully winning the World Cup title for two consecutive times."
India won the T20 World Cup on Sunday, defeating New Zealand by 96 runs in the final held in Ahmedabad, and also became the first side to win it on three occasions.
The House of Representatives (HoR) in Nepal has a total of 275 seats.
While 165 members are elected through the FPTP or direct voting system, 110 members are elected through proportional representation (PR), and the vote counting under which is still underway and is expected to conclude by Tuesday night.
However, the Election Commission says a few more days will be required to declare the final results under the PR system and formally allocate seats to candidates of different parties.
Under the PR system, the RSP has secured 4,974,957 votes, followed by Nepali Congress with 1,685,722 votes, CPN-UML with 1,402,157 votes, Nepali Communist Party with 763,633 votes, Shram Sanskriti Party with 350,809, and Rastriya Prajatantra Party with 323,744 votes.
Based on the current trend, the RSP is likely to secure at least 50 seats under the PR system, which would take its total tally in the HoR to around 175 seats, experts said.
This would allow the party to form a majority government under Article 76 (1) of the Constitution of Nepal.