New Delhi. A day after voting for the election of the next PM in Nepal, the country is going to create history. Rapper turned politician Balen Shah is on his way to becoming PM. Balen Shah, a rising face in Nepali politics, is often in the news due to his statements and decisions regarding India. After becoming the Mayor of Kathmandu, Balen took many such steps, which were seen as a tough stance against India. According to media reports, the biggest controversy occurred when he got a map of ‘Greater Nepal’ installed in his office, in which many areas of India including UP, Bihar and West Bengal were shown as part of Nepal. This map was seen as a response to the ‘Akhand Bharat’ graffiti in the new Parliament of India. This move of Balen Shah had sparked a new debate on India-Nepal relations. Apart from this, he had also warned of banning the screening of Hindi films in Kathmandu due to a dialogue from the film ‘Adipurush’.
According to the report, in June 2023, Kathmandu Mayor Balendra Shah installed a new map of Nepal in his office, to which India had lodged a strong objection. In this map, some parts of many states of India were described as part of Greater Nepal. In June 2023, Balendra Shah had targeted Bollywood films. This controversy started with the release of Prabhas, Kriti Sanon and Saif Ali Khan starrer film Adipurush. There is a dialogue in the film – Sita is the daughter of India. Balen was enraged by this and called it an attack on Nepal’s cultural identity. There are many beliefs that Sita was born in Janakpur, located in the south-east of Nepal. Balen had said that unless the dialogues were removed from the film, not only Adipurush but no Indian film would be released in Kathmandu.