KATHMANDU, Sept 12: There are growing signs of public frustration with the government led by Prime Minister Balen Shah and the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), which came to power with a near two-thirds majority in the House of Representatives.
The recent incident in Madhesh, where government spokesperson and Minister for Education and Sports Sasmit Pokharel was forced to leave an event amid protests, has brought renewed attention to the widening gap between the government and citizens.
Since the election, the government has maintained that its mandate is to bring about political change, ensure good governance and deliver tangible results. But increasingly, public complaints suggest a disconnect between the government's promises and what citizens experience in their daily lives.
The incident is particularly significant in light of remarks made earlier by RSP lawmaker Amaresh Singh, who had warned that “the people would chase the government away after Chhath.” With a minister now being forced to leave a public event in Madhesh even before Teej, his remarks have resurfaced in political discussions.
A difficult mandate to sustain
In the March 5, 2026, House of Representatives election, the RSP won 125 seats under the first-past-the-post system and 57 through proportional representation, taking its total to 182 seats. A two-thirds majority in the 275-member House requires 184 seats, leaving the party just two short.
The party also secured more than 5.1 million votes under the proportional representation system.
The result was far more than a conventional electoral victory. Widespread dissatisfaction with traditional political parties, a growing demand for a new political alternative, and the appeal of the political partnership between Rabi Lamichhane and Balen Shah combined to give the RSP an unprecedented mandate.
The party itself had argued that public frustration with the old political establishment had created an opening for a new alternative.
In effect, voters gave the RSP not merely a five-year mandate to govern but an opportunity to change the way the country had traditionally been governed.
That raises a pressing question: Why are signs of dissatisfaction emerging so soon from a government that received such an overwhelming mandate?
The government says it has implemented 87.2 percent of its 100-point governance reform agenda. According to Minister Pokharel, 70 of the 100 commitments have been completed, 17 have achieved more than 80 percent progress, while 13 have recorded less than 60 percent progress.
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An external assessment, however, paints a somewhat different picture.
According to an evaluation by the Independent Citizen Accountability Project, 36 commitments have progressed positively, 59 remain in the implementation phase, four have stalled and one has not yet begun.
The contrasting assessments point to a broader issue: the difference between measuring administrative progress and delivering results that citizens can actually experience.
The government may consider the movement of files, initiation of procedures or creation of institutional mechanisms as progress. Citizens, however, are likely to judge the government by more immediate questions: Have public services become easier to access? Have jobs increased? Has the cost of living eased? Has corruption declined? And how quickly does the state respond when citizens face problems?
That gap between government performance as measured by official indicators and government performance as experienced by citizens could become one of the administration's biggest political challenges.
From promises to tangible results
The 100-point agenda unveiled when the Balen administration took office included ambitious commitments on digital governance, corruption control, public service reform, refunding cooperative depositors, employment and skills development, resolving the problems of landless people, protecting the private sector and reforming education.
For a government with such a strong electoral mandate, however, the challenge is no longer simply to announce ambitious programmes. It is to ensure that those programmes produce visible results.
The government has highlighted digital governance and administrative reforms as some of its key achievements. But for most citizens, the government's performance continues to be judged through everyday concerns—passports, driving licences, hospitals, education, employment, market prices, cooking gas, roads and public security.
Recent reports and public reactions concerning gas distribution, post-flood rescue and rehabilitation, the management of landless settlers, dissatisfaction within the private sector and the government's overall working style suggest that scrutiny of the administration is growing.
A recent report about protests demanding easier access to cooking gas even raised a pointed question: “Will changing ministers help people get gas?”
Such questions reflect a broader shift in public expectations—from promises of reform to demands for immediate delivery.
The flood response adds to the pressure
The Bhotekoshi–Trishuli flood has provided another major test of the government's ability to respond to a crisis.
Questions have been raised over rescue operations, the search for people trapped in hydropower tunnels, information dissemination, relief distribution, rehabilitation and coordination among government agencies.
Reports in major online media have questioned the government's level of engagement in rescue operations and whether authorities were too slow to seek outside assistance in efforts to rescue people trapped inside tunnels.
In a disaster, the effectiveness of a government is not measured merely by decisions taken in offices or directives issued on paper. It is measured by whether people caught in a crisis feel that the state is present and capable of helping them.
For a government that came to power on a powerful promise of effective governance, the flood was therefore more than an administrative challenge. It was also a test of state capacity.
Why Madhesh matters
The incident in Madhesh may be tempting to dismiss as an isolated protest at a public event. Politically, however, it carries greater significance.
The RSP made substantial inroads into Madhesh in the election, presenting itself as a new political alternative to the region's established Madhesh-based parties.
Public anger directed at a minister in a region where the RSP had sought to expand its political base is therefore a politically sensitive development.
There have also been reports of protests in Janakpur against the Balen government over issues related to Guthi land.
Taken together, these developments suggest that the government's political challenge may not be confined to Kathmandu or social media platforms.
Social media popularity is not street-level support
Social media played a major role in the RSP's political rise. Before the election, citizens themselves became campaigners for the party through digital platforms, while the RSP built much of its political communication and outreach around social media.
But popularity on social media and popularity in government are not necessarily the same thing.
While in opposition, questioning the government, speaking out against corruption and challenging the established political order can generate considerable public support. Once in power, however, the same citizens expect answers, results and accountability.
For the government, therefore, dismissing criticism on social media simply as opposition propaganda could prove risky.
Opposition parties inevitably have political interests in protests and demonstrations against a government led by a party with 182 seats. For traditional parties, the RSP's electoral strength represents a formidable challenge. There have also been reports of preparations by opposition forces to increase pressure on the government both inside Parliament and on the streets.
But not every expression of dissatisfaction can be attributed to political manoeuvring.
Landless settlers, cooking gas consumers, private-sector representatives, health workers, flood victims, professional groups and citizens at the local level have different grievances. Treating all of them as part of a single political campaign could prevent the government from recognising legitimate public concerns.
The more important question for the Balen administration may therefore be whether it can distinguish political opposition from genuine public dissatisfaction—and respond to the latter before frustration becomes a broader challenge to the mandate that brought it to power.
The RSP's sweeping electoral victory gave the government an extraordinary political opportunity. Sustaining that mandate, however, will depend less on the size of its parliamentary majority than on whether citizens begin to see meaningful improvements in their everyday lives.
