In the recently concluded elections for parliamentarians, RaSwaPa has made a clean sweep victory nearly to touch two third majority. In addition, it is going to get large number of seats by securing proportional votes.
Rastriya Swatnatra Party also known as RaSwaPa or RSP is a young political party in Nepal. It was founded by journalist turned politician Ravi Lamichhane in 2022. The chief of the party has faced many controversies in terms of financial fraud and also citizenship issues.
As RaSwaPa has secured majority seats in the coming parliament, it is set to form government. It has already proposed Balen Shah, who joined the party to contest for Parliamentarian seat resigning the post of mayor of Kathmandu Metropolitan City to be made Prime Minister if RaSwaPa won to govern the country.
The party has floated a manifesto for calling ‘commitment document’ so as other political parties also did. They all had mentioned economic development of the country through energy development focusing on hydropower and solar electricity mainly. Moreover, health, education, transportation, industrialization, employment, women development and child development, balanced foreign policy were also mentioned significantly by all parties. Climate and environment issues, farmers’ livelihood and supports are also taken into focus by all.
Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) plans to initiate comprehensive constitutional reform immediately upon taking office. Within the first three months, the party will prepare a “Discussion Paper” to engage political stakeholders, experts, and the public, aiming to build broad national consensus on necessary amendments.
The core concepts RSP intends to propose include: a directly elected executive to strengthen accountability; a fully proportional parliament to ensure fair representation; a system in which Members of Parliament cannot simultaneously serve as ministers, maintaining separation of powers; non-partisan local governments to promote local democracy; and an improved provincial structure for effective governance and resource distribution.
RaSwaPa places Nepal’s sovereignty, geographical integrity, and national interest above all else and adopts a policy of Balanced and Dynamic Diplomacy to turn shifting global geopolitics and the rise of neighbouring powers into concrete opportunities for national development. Recognizing the strategic interests of neighbouring countries and changes in the global power balance, RSP aims to safeguard Nepal’s interests by transforming the country from a “buffer state” into a “vibrant bridge” through trilateral economic cooperation, regional connectivity, and mutually beneficial partnerships.
RSP will renew development partnership models so Nepal can benefit from the rapid progress made by India over the past decade, particularly in digital public infrastructure, high-speed and high-quality physical infrastructure, economic formalization, balanced growth between manufacturing and services, and overall state capacity enhancement. At the same time, RSP will build structured partnership frameworks with China by mobilizing concessional finance for world-class infrastructure, adopting state-guided socio-economic development programs, and learning from effective inter-provincial competition models. Through this balanced approach, RSP seeks to ensure national interest while positioning Nepal as an active, confident, and development-oriented partner in the region.
The party places continuous productivity growth at the heart of Nepal’s economic transformation, emphasizing strong coordination between a risk-taking private sector and a transparent, facilitating public sector. The party envisions a system where the private sector leads job creation and investment, while the government acts as a regulator and facilitator, eliminating rent-seeking, policy exploitation, and bureaucratic obstacles. RSP recognizes that Nepal must harness its youth demographic dividend over the next 10–15 years to avoid falling into a low-income trap.
RaSwaPa’s economic targets include repealing or improving laws that hinder business, reducing production costs, and maintaining an average annual growth rate of 7% for the next five years, aiming for a per capita income over $3,000 and a national economy nearing $100 billion within 5–7 years. Tax reforms will reduce burdens on citizens while safeguarding revenue, including adjustments for family expenses in income tax. The party will also study the fixed exchange rate with the Indian Rupee with international expertise.
RSP emphasizes a borderless, knowledge-based economy, shifting from labor exports to service exports and IT-driven growth. The Information Technology sector will be declared a National Strategic Industry, with a goal to increase IT exports from $1.5 billion to $30 billion in 10 years, supported by an autonomous IT Promotion Board and Digital Parks in all seven provinces, making Nepal a competitive hub for innovation, digital services, and economic transformation.
Regarding energy development, consumption in the country and exports to neighbouring countries, the party has set an ambitious goal of achieving 30,000 MW of installed electricity capacity within the next decade, positioning energy as a backbone of Nepal’s economic transformation. To fast-track projects, land acquisition and environmental clearance laws will be amended so that the Ministry of Energy can manage all approvals through a single-window service delivery system, replacing the current fragmented structure involving multiple ministries and departments. The government will also take full responsibility for security arrangements throughout hydropower project timelines.
To realize the objectives of the Energy Development Decade, RSP will introduce a new energy and water resources policy and create strong legal and institutional frameworks to encourage private sector participation across the entire energy value chain. This includes not only generation, but also battery storage, pump storage, technology-based storage systems, transmission, and distribution. The energy trade sector will be opened to private investment, generation licenses will be extended from 35 to 50 years, and legal provisions will enable electricity from solar power, rooftop solar systems, and agro-based solar farms to be sold to the national grid through net-metering. Additional incentives will promote solar farms on barren hill lands with irrigation access.
RSP will prioritize increasing domestic electricity consumption by ensuring land availability, expanding transmission lines, and modernizing distribution systems. Energy-intensive industries—such as steel, cement, herbal processing, data centers, and chemical fertilizer production—will be actively attracted. Electricity tariffs will be restructured, including a special household tariff, to encourage higher usage, with a clear target of raising per capita electricity consumption to 1,500 kWh by 2035.
The party also plans to transform Nepal’s energy advantage into a technology export opportunity. Within five years, Nepal will evolve from an exporter of raw electricity to an exporter of Artificial Intelligence and computational power, using clean energy to run server farms and data centers. Instead of selling electricity alone, the country will sell high-value server processing time. A national cryptocurrency policy will be established in the first year, and pilot projects for crypto mining will be developed based on energy availability.
As far the RaSwaPa is form the government with comfortable majority, the goals could be achieved with the best of efforts. So as the commoners are looking forward to the fruitful outcome in the Ra SwaPa ruling mandated for five years to go on. (By R.P. Narayan)
