Oli’s tabla gift, 'riyaaz' advice to Balen 4 yrs ago turns into Nepal poll’s sharpest irony

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.




That was also where one of Oli’s most striking lines about Balen resurfaced. “If he continues his riyaaz, he can do well,” Oli had said in Pokhara then. “Just as music requires discipline and riyaaz (training), so does politics. If he keeps working at both, he can grow into a good artist, a good public figure and a good politician. In that sense, his artistic side and his public life can strengthen each other.”

Oli had framed the gift as more than a casual present. Saying Balen’s interest in tabla and music was “a good sign for a public representative”, he added: “I may be in politics, but I also have an interest in music, literature and the arts. I listen to songs, watch dance, listen to poetry and read literature. In the same way, he has only recently entered public life and is still learning, but he, too, has an interest in music.”

Oli then gave the practical reason for the gift. “From what I know, Balen Shah, that is, Balendra Shah, the elected chief of Kathmandu in the last local elections, plays the tabla. However, he had a clay tabla, it broke...,” Oli said. “He didn’t have a tabla, I had a metal tabla, it didn’t break even when (I) moved. That’s why I gave a gift of a strong, good quality tabla.”

The former PM had also explained the warmth behind the gesture. “I must say this clearly: the mayor is very popular. We have known each other for some time, and he has visited my home on a few occasions. This is already public knowledge..."

It did not stay that way.

As Balen’s popularity rose and Oli increasingly came to embody the old order that many young voters wanted swept aside, the relationship deteriorated sharply. By the time the Jhapa-5 campaign began, the cordiality had given way to one of the election’s most bitter personal contests. Oli publicly challenged Balen to a debate. Balen refused.

In one of the campaign’s most discussed exchanges, Balen asked Oli when the latter would accept that he was a "terrorist", accusing the senior politician of the killings during the Sept 2025 protests. He also said "standing on the same stage as the killer of 76 children and his accomplices would make me complicit".