Last month, editors at a prominent Nepali online news portal debated whether to run an article comparing recently elected Prime Minister Balendra Shah to Kazi Lhendup Dorjee, the Sikkimese leader who presided over his kingdom’s absorption into India in 1975.

The controversy traced back to a remark Prime Minister Balendra Shah made in Parliament on May 31, 2026. He said, “You might find it strange, but I also learned only recently – after becoming Prime Minister – that it’s not just India but Nepal too has encroached upon Indian territories in many places.”

Shah’s comment triggered debate across Nepal’s Parliament and social media, and the newsroom received a wave of articles weighing in for and against it. One submission drew a pointed comparison, asking whether Shah could be “the new Lhendup Dorjee”.

Speaking to Newslaundry on the condition of anonymity, a senior editor at the portal recalled preparing the piece for publication, only for a colleague to intervene. “Sir, let's not publish this article,” the colleague said. Asked why, the colleague pointed to how the ruling Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) supporters had earlier launched a campaign after another widely-read news portal ran a report critical of the government. 

“My colleague told me that publishing this article will invite retaliation from the government and its supporters. I could understand their fear,” the editor said.

The article was never published. No government official had called the news portal to ask that the article be pulled. No formal warning was issued. The article died at an editor’s desk, on the strength of an anticipation of consequences that never needed to be spelt out.

It is this anticipatory silence – media houses disciplining themselves before the state does – that has come to define much of Nepal’s press environment under the Balendra Shah administration, which earlier this month completed 100 days in office.

Alongside this quieter form of control sits a more visible one. Since taking office, Shah’s administration has enforced a strict institutional blackout that bars journalists from entering government offices, holds no press conferences, chokes private media revenue through advertising blockades, and engages in direct intimidation – an attitude that stretches back to his days as mayor of Kathmandu.

‘Misbehaved with media’

Shah’s approach to the press had taken shape long before he entered the Prime Minister’s Office. In June 2022, Himalaya Television journalist Prince Mishra and cameraperson Abhisht Lama arrived at the Environmental Management Department of Kathmandu Metropolitan City in Teku. They had gone to report on the operations of the Metropolitan City-run biogas plant.

However, a routine assignment quickly deteriorated into confrontation. According to an official statement issued by the Federation of Nepali Journalists (FNJ), Nepal’s oldest and largest association of journalists: “Shah misbehaved with Himalaya Television journalist Prince Mishra and cameraperson Abhisht Lama, who had visited the Teku-based environment department to gather news.”

Shah allegedly reacted aggressively the moment he saw the news crew. The FNJ statement noted that “as soon as he saw the Himalaya Television boom (microphone) and camera, [Shah] misbehaved with them and made them delete the footage they had recorded,” before barring them from entering the facility in the future. Labeling the forced deletion of reporting material as an unacceptable restriction on media access, the FNJ demanded that authorities respect the constitutional rights and freedoms guaranteed to the press.

Newslaundry reached out to Madhusudan Panthi, editor of Himalaya Television, for comment on the incident. While he did not address the specific episode directly, he responded in writing to a broader set of questions about the government’s relationship with the press, excerpts of which appear throughout this report.

Around the same time, a digital news portal, Onlinekhabar, published a blog criticising Shah over his use of the national flag in campaign material, and was met with a vicious social media campaign and threatening phone calls to its newsroom. 

(More on this social media campaign, and the wider digital ecosystem behind it, in Part 2 of this two-part series.)

One-way governance

Since taking office as Mayor in 2022 and transitioning to Prime Minister in March 2026, Shah has not held a single press conference or given an interview to the national media. Official information flows one-way through Shah’s personal social media accounts.

Kanak Mani Dixit, writer and founding editor of Himal Southasian, told Newslaundry, “The media has zero access to Balendra Shah. As is the case with Prime Minister Modi in India, there is no opportunity to ask him questions – it is simply disallowed. Policy announcements and sensitive matters of state are announced through his social media handles. That is hardly enough to run a country as complex as Nepal.”

“One of the clearest signs that a society is moving towards becoming a closed one is when people in government, the media, administrators, and even the business elite start using the encrypted messaging app Signal,” said Dixit. “That is a bellwether for democracy, and the fact that Nepal’s opinion-makers have joined Signal indicates we are not in a good state. Since the Jana Andolan in 1990, Nepal has prided itself on being the most open society in South Asia; that standing has eroded drastically under the current government.”

Himalaya Television editor Madhusudan Panthi argued that Shah’s approach marks a genuine departure from past practice.

“Traditional leaders such as KP Sharma Oli, Sher Bahadur Deuba, or Pushpa Kamal Dahal (‘Prachanda’) also tried to influence or control the media to their advantage. However, they did not completely shut the door on regular or even pressurised press conferences, informal meetings, or interviews,” Panthi said. “Shah’s approach, by contrast, is based on total avoidance. He does not present himself effectively in public speeches or interviews. To conceal this weakness, he may prefer to avoid face-to-face questioning altogether.”

This shift, Panthi said, has left newsrooms with three compounding problems: a one-way flow of information with no room for follow-up questions; difficulty verifying whether a post reflects official policy or personal opinion; and newsrooms “increasingly forced to chase whatever leaders post online” instead of doing serious investigative journalism.