The scale of the Rastriya Swatantra Party’s victory in the 2026 elections has answered one question in Nepali politics and opened a much harder one. Public anger has indeed turned into a decisive verdict. The electorate has punished an entire political generation and, through it, a whole way of governing. But that only sharpens the central question now facing Nepal: What will Balendra Shah do with such a sweeping victory?

It is easy enough to describe him as anti-establishment, youth-driven and an outsider in style. It is harder, and now far more necessary, to ask what doctrine of power emerges once such a figure enters office. Does he use victory to become the state and inaugurate a new administrative order, or does he remain in permanent struggle with the state from inside power?

The subcontinent itself has seen two powerful versions of it in recent Indian politics: Narendra Modi in 2014, and Arvind Kejriwal in 2015. Both came with verdict-sized mandates, outsider energy, digital mobilisation and a public mood that wanted more than routine policy change. These similarities, along with the cultural proximity to India, make both of these examples useful for Nepal. Together, they illuminate the two broad doctrines available to an anti-establishment figure who suddenly becomes the establishment.

In 2014, the Bharatiya Janata Party under Modi won India’s first single-party majority since 1984. His first term was strategically formidable in the speed with which it moved to convert anti-incumbent anger into a new governing order. Modi’s first instinct was to move away from the emotional trap of anti-Congress resentment and reframe his victory into a broader national mandate for development and aspiration. Jan Dhan, Swachh Bharat, Digital India, the replacement of the Planning Commission with NITI Aayog, and tighter PMO-led execution together created the impression of a state newly centred and newly purposeful. The signature move of Modi in 2014 was simple: Absorb the mandate into the state.

A second instinct followed. Instead of relaxing into office, the BJP under Amit Shah treated victory as the beginning of organisational expansion. Membership, booth structure, recruitment, social reach and geographic penetration were all pushed harder after winning than before. The party did not allow the state alone to carry its political future. It used the moment to build a wider machine around the leader. This is what converted electoral victory from a wave into a more durable system that still continues to deliver fresh territory for the BJP political machine.

The welfare architecture of Modi’s first term also deserves attention. It was designed as a synthesis of social policy and political infrastructure. The JAM trinity of Jan Dhan, Aadhaar and Mobile became the basis of a direct benefit delivery system, which shortened the distance between citizen and leader. It reduced the visible role of brokers, local intermediaries and district power centres as the obvious sources of assistance. Marking an end to the traditional politics of patronage, this system moved democratic power so that the leader could now increasingly appear as the direct author of relief.

A similarly important part of Modi’s first term was symbolism that foregrounded civic identity over overt political division. Swachh Bharat is the clearest example. Officially launched on October 2, 2014, as a cleanliness campaign, Modi also used it to craft a personal brand of reform that was direct and grounded in Indian psychology rather than the impersonal language of technocracy. The campaign transformed his leadership from a party to a regime.

Just as important was the creation of a new nerve centre in the Prime Minister’s Office. Dashboards, review mechanisms and PMO-mediated execution culture created a sharper governance tempo. Even before the bureaucracy was fully transformed, the centre projected urgency and responsiveness. Modi’s early governing style showed how top-level execution pressure can create the feeling of a state that has recovered direction.

AAP, after its 2015 Delhi landslide, behaved very differently. Its majority was overwhelming, but Delhi is a constrained quasi-state, not a full state. The elected government did not control police, public order or land, and its conflict with the Lieutenant Governor persisted. Yet the constitutional handicap does not explain everything. AAP also made a behavioural choice: it governed as a mobilised anti-establishment force from inside the office.

Its instinct after victory was closer to this question: How do we show the public, repeatedly and visibly, that we are morally different and directly useful? Instead of machine-rewiring moves at the scale Modi attempted nationally, AAP’s style under Kejriwal was citizen-proximate and grievance-centric. The 1031 anti-corruption helpline, neighbourhood-scale service politics, and later Mohalla Clinics all reflected a model of doorstep governance built on visible relief.

AAP sought to keep the public connection of its movement alive. Even while in power, its legitimacy remained tied to proximity, simplicity and anti-VIP symbolism.

The contrast is therefore sharp. BJP under Modi in 2014 behaved like a force that had come to complete the Indian state. AAP, after its Delhi majority, behaved like a force that had come to fight from inside the state. That is the key question for Nepal: Will Shah’s governing doctrine be closer to Modi in 2014 or Kejriwal in 2015?

If his instincts are closer to Modi, he will narrow his agenda, centralise efficiency, avoid spending too much legitimacy on moral theatre, pick a few state-rewiring moves, and make the bureaucracy internalise the new power centre. If he behaves more like Kejriwal, he will keep public anger politically active for a long time, foreground anti-corruption confrontation, build a few citizen-facing wins, and continue to depend on anti-establishment ethos for legitimacy.

Shah does not have the same party depth, institutional reach or ideological ecosystem that Modi had in 2014. That means the gravitational pull on him may be stronger towards the AAP mode of permanent struggle. Yet what Nepal may need now is more than a righteous leader. It may need someone who can make the nation feel newly centred without naked centralisation of power, someone who can convert this rare historic legitimacy into a durable state capacity.