Nepal Prime Minister Balendra Shah's asset disclosure, filed after his appointment in accordance with Section 50 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 2002, listed social media — not his government salary — as his primary source of income. 

Shah declared bank deposits of 14.6 million Nepali rupees (INR 91 lakh) and stated that a significant portion of his income is generated through social media, from his over 4 million Facebook followers, approximately 1.2 million YouTube subscribers, and nearly 500,000 followers on X.

The disclosure raises an unusual conflict: Nepal’s sitting prime minister is being paid by the same platforms he uses to communicate government policy directly to the public.

As Part 1 of this two-part series on Nepal’s press freedom crisis has documented, the Shah administration has enforced a strict institutional blackout on journalists: no press conferences, restricted access to ministries, and an economic blockade against mainstream media. 

Alongside this official blackout is a less visible system of control: a vast digital ecosystem used for trolling and targeted harassment. At its centre are prominent social media pages with close ties to Shah’s inner circle.

The algorithmic shield and the inner circle

Most members of Shah’s cabinet are also highly active on social media, often using personal accounts rather than official government channels to communicate with the public. Analysts, politicians and civil society leaders see this as a deliberate strategy to divert attention from pressing national issues.

“The government is using social media strategically to create a positive image of themselves,” says Ujjawal Achary, a researcher at the Kathmandu-based Centre for Media Research Nepal. 

This image management was on full display in the first week of May 2026, when Nepal’s Supreme Court stayed three major decisions taken by the Shah government: banning student unions at universities, abolishing civil servants’ trade unions, and forcibly evicting squatter settlements along Kathmandu’s rivers.

On May 9, amidst the legal setback, a photo of Shah sitting casually went viral. Instead of discussing the setback his administration had suffered, the internet in Nepal spent the week debating his outfit and the price of his sneakers.

In a May 2026 report, Mani Dahal, special correspondent with Nepal News and a member of its investigative unit, documented how social media accounts run by Shah and his associates played a key role in his electoral victories. Together, Dahal wrote, these accounts provided Shah with a powerful political base.

Many of Shah’s closest advisors are directly connected to influential social media pages. Kumar Byanjankar, Shah’s Chief Political Advisor popularly known as 'Kumar Ben', is the founder of Troll Nepal, boasting about 638,000 followers on his Facebook profile. 

Victor Poudel, founder of Routine of Nepal Banda (RONB), which commands about 5.1 million followers on Facebook and 1.6 million on TikTok, has also been closely associated with Shah and his government. The page frequently posts in favour of Shah's work, and critics attribute his victory in the Kathmandu mayoral elections largely to the popularity of RONB. 

Sudhanshu Dahal, a professor of media studies at Kathmandu University, says in this Kathmandu Post article that the relationship between RONB and Shah is an “open secret”.

Speaking to Newslaundry, Dahal noted that RONB, which is also a registered media organisation, has a commercial incentive to maximise engagement. It is, he claimed, “the highest bidding Facebook page” for sponsored content, meaning stories that perform well – including ones favourable to Shah – are also directly profitable for the page.

This dynamic was documented as far back as Shah’s mayoral tenure. A January 2026 Kathmandu Post report by Gaurav Pokharel and Lekhnath Pant noted that Shah rarely engaged traditional media, preferring Facebook posts that sometimes sparked controversy – several of which were reposted verbatim on pages like RONB, multiplying his reach. 

Coverage of Shah on RONB was, at times, consistent enough that rival politicians accused the page of favouritism. Poudel did not dispute this. 

“We used to post about every candidate and political party, but those on Balen always got us the most user engagement,” he told the Post.

This relationship has repeatedly been leveraged to control damage during controversies. Back in 2023, Shah controversially posted that he would burn down Singha Durbar after the police stopped his vehicle during a routine check of government vehicles on a public holiday. Singha Durbar is the historical palace serving as the political and administrative centre of the Nepal government. 

Immediately after the post triggered severe backlash, RONB came to Shah’s defence, distorting the controversy. It posted a picture of Shah and his wife with a caption implying they had just become parents to a baby girl to turn the narrative back in Shah’s favour. However, the independent news outlet Setopati later reported that Shah’s wife had actually given birth a week earlier, exposing the post as a coordinated narrative pivot.

Newslaundry’s own review of RONB’s Facebook activity found at least 10 such coordinated posts since Shah became prime minister, suggesting this pattern has persisted. On July 21, for example, Shah posted about the government’s decision to scrap a 3 percent health and education tax; ten minutes later, an identical post appeared on RONB tagged with the hashtag #news. A similar pattern followed on June 20, when Shah posted an itinerary for the Makalu Base Camp trek, which RONB reposted the same day with credit to Shah.