Raju Pathak, central committee secretary of All India Nepalese Unity Forum, will be sitting in his Picnic Garden home in Calcutta and stay glued to his cell phone on Sunday when around 18 million Nepalis will cast their votes for the national and provincial elections in the Himalayan country.

“I can’t go to Nepal to cast my vote as I didn’t get leave... But I will track all the developments online,” Pathak, who works in a private company in Calcutta, told The Telegraph.

The elections are being held in the backdrop of political instability that has seen 10 governments since the abolition of monarchy in 2008 and a host of economic woes, ranging from record high inflation of over 8 per cent to acute joblessness.

“Our future depends on this election,” said Pathak.

The electoral battle in Nepal, however, is not only significant for the future of around 3 crore citizens of the landlocked country, saddled between India and China, but it is also critical for the geopolitics of the South Asian subcontinent.

It comes at a time when the US has started taking an interest in the region that had earlier seen India and China trying to exert their influence.

The contest

This time, the fight is mainly between the Nepali Congress party, broadly believed to be pro-India, and the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) known for its tilt towards China.

The main contenders for the premiership are incumbent Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba of the Nepali Congress party — which has an alliance with the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre) headed by Pushpa Kamal Dahal also known as Prachanda — and K.P. Sharma Oli of the UML, which has an alliance that includes royalists as well.

Both Oli and Prachanda had been former Prime Ministers of the country.

“This election is much more crucial than 2017 when the UML and the Maoist Centre fought in an alliance and got a sweeping mandate... But then Prime Minister Oli dissolved the parliament twice and created instability. This election is about political stability and the overwhelming mood is in favour of Deuba and Prachanda,” said Laxman Pant, politburo member of the Maoist Centre.

Multiple sources in Delhi and Kathmandu said even though the Deuba-led coalition had an edge, they urged not to discount Oli, a threetime Prime Minister known for his ability to stoke nationalistic feelings among the voters. He is also believed to have the ears of Beijing.

Several young independent candidates are also in the fray this time. Another important facet of the election is the general disillusionment among a section with regard to the political leadership and it got captured in a first-of-itskind “No-Not-Again-Campaign”.

India angle

As part of the election security, the open 1,770-km India-Nepal border was sealed on Friday for 72 hours. This brought trade and the movement of people along the borders to a grinding halt.

While the trading community along the border are hoping that the ban on the movement of goods will be lifted after the polls, Delhi — which sent a consignment of vehicles to the Nepalese poll panel and also offered technical knowhow to conduct the elections — will be closely watching the developments in Kathmandu over the next few days.

“The Nepalese people have always believed that India plays a huge role in the election... Oli used this to his advantage in the 2017 polls, held in the backdrop of India’s unofficial blockade of transportation of essential goods in 2015, and emerged a winner. The nationalistic fervour is the theme of his campaign as he has been talking about his commitment to take back encroached land,” said a former Indian diplomat.

Delhi’s reservation with Oly — whose government in 2020 issued a new political map including territories controlled by India — is in sharp contrast with its stance vis-avis Deuba who began his trip to India earlier this year with a visit to the BJP office.

While Delhi’s preference is very clear, it has maintained “a low profile” in Kathmandu in the last few months, which, some observers think, will deny Oli the opportunity to play the nationalistic card.

US versus China

Unlike the 2017 elections, when India was the centre of the foreign policy discourse ahead of the polls, the US and Chinese attempts at exerting influence in Nepal is drawing more eyeballs.

In the run-up to Sunday’s election, Nepal and China on Tuesday signed an agreement for the utilisation of Rs 15 billion in Chinese grants for various projects selected by the Nepali side. There are also reports that the Nepal Army awarded the contract for an expressway linking the Indian border to a Chinese company.

The Chinese attempt to woo Kathmandu using the grant route seems in response to the $500 million loan from the US under the Millennium Challenge Cooperation to Nepal for electricity transmission lines and repair and maintenance of roads for the next five years.

The Nepalese parliament ratified it after a lot of deliberations, which angered Beijing.

The US attempt to minimise China’s influence in both Nepal and the region is not only good news for India, but it has also offered Delhi the chance to lie low ahead of the polls.

“This will help Deuba, the favourite of Delhi,” said an Indian source.