RSP leader Balen defeats four time PM Oli by 50,000 votes in Nepal polls

Kathmandu (PTI): RSP leader and rapper-turned-politician Balendra Shah 'Balen' defeated four-time prime minister K P Sharma Oli by a huge margin of about 50,000 votes in Nepal's Jhapa-5 constituency, the Election Commission said here.

The Rashtriya Swatantrata Party (RSP) leader and former Kathmandu Mayor, popularly known only as Balen is his party's prime ministerial candidate.

As of 6 pm, the RSP had won 62 seats from among the 78 for which results have been declared and leading in 60 seats.

Balen, 35, secured 68,348 votes against 74-year-old Oli's 18,734, the Election Commission (EC) said.

The Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist–Leninist) -- CPN-UML – had projected Oli as the party's Prime Ministerial candidate.

Nepal voted on Thursday in the first general elections since the violent Gen Z protests last year that had demanded a generational change in politics and a corruption-free regime in the Himalayan nation.