The forthcoming parliamentary election has indeed been marked by several notable features. One of them is certainly the projection of the prime ministerial candidate by the three major political parties – the Nepali Congress (NC), the Unified Marxist- Leninist (UML), and the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP). Whilst the NC has presented its newly-elected debonair president, Gagan Thapa, the UML has proposed its former prime minister and demagogue president, K P Sharma Oli. The RSP has projected Balen Shah, the Mayor of Kathmandu Metropolis, who enjoys incredible popularity among the young populace in the country. This is, however, not the first time that such an initiative had been taken in Nepal. In the 1999 election, the NC had presented Krishna Prasad Bhattarai as the prime minister on account of his clean image, honesty, and integrity. Another feature of the current election is a proposal for a debate amongst the prime ministerial candidates. Such debates can be considered as a U.S. phenomenon as it was in this country that such an initiative was taken for the first time back in 1928 when the new League of Women Voters sponsored a ten-month series of nationally broadcast debate. The candidates did not participate themselves, but they sent journalists, scholars, and the likes to speak on their behalf in this endeavour. In 1935, NBC Red, one of the two U.S. national broadcasting radio networks, went on the air transmitting a public affairs debate programme duly inviting the interested persons in the studio. The candidates were given 20 minutes to air their views, which were followed by questions from the attending audience. This programme became very popular, with the participation of 5 million listeners per week. It was considered better than the opinions expressed in the newspapers as they were heavily edited for making the favoured candidates or parties look better. Consequently, Franklin Roosevelt had said that he preferred the radio debate than the newspaper publication. Radio transmitted debates made a giant leap forward with the arrival of television in the early sixties in the United States. It concided with the presidential debate of 1960 where John F Kennedy, the leader of the Democratic Party, and Richard Nixon of the Republican Party clashed with each other. Some 77 million Americans, representing 67 per cent of the adult population, watched this debate. It even surpassed the Abraham Lincoln-Stephen Douglas event of the year 1858, which was considered till then the landmark event of this kind. Kennedy did extraordinarily well, and several senators who were staunch followers of Nixon voted for Kennedy in addition to many who were standing on the fence, leading to the victory of Kennedy. If the Kennedy-Nixon debate is said to be the best, the worst is said to be the Trump-Biden debate, alleged to be high on hyperbole and low on details. These debates are so popular now that they are analysed from several angles, for example, from the linguistic perspective, such as the diversity in the vocabulary of the candidates. The Trump verses Biden and Harris is one of them where it was revealed that Trump consistently employed emotionally charged language with high sentiment volatility while his adversaries demonstrated more measured approaches with higher lexical diversity. Such discourses have now spread around the globe. For example, the French debate has reduced the scope of the moderators as against in the US where they appear prominently in the debate. The Denmark debate focusses on a single issue whilst the Netherlands debate is devoted to specific age groups, such as children and students. South Korean debate is moderated by a professor instead of a journalist. The debates in Costa Rica consist of queries from academicians and professionals. Similarly, debates are held in Nigeria as well as Ghana. In our eastern world, debates were held in the royal assembly whereby the court philosophers used to take part. The most notable is the one organised in the assembly of King Janak where legendary philosophers like Yagnavalkya and lady philosopher Gargi deliberated on the ultimate nature of cosmos, reality, and existence as recorded in the Bhadranyaka Upanishad. This idea of holding a debate was recently floated by Udaya Shumsher Rana, a former minister and the new joint-secretary of the NC. It was responded positively by Gagan and Oli. It has, however, been rejected by Balen, saying he would not sit next to the murderer of 76 people during the Gen Z movement. It may, however, be because Balen does not consider public speaking as his forte, which he has admitted in one public rally in Madhes, where he said he knows how to work but not to talk. It is likely that Gagan would emerge victorious in such a debate because of his oratorial skills. He would certainly dwarf the likes of introverted Balen in the same manner as the latter would defeat the former in a rapper song contest. Oli also would not lag far behind by virtue of the proverbs that he usually resorts to for catching the attention of the public. People obviously want to know what the vision, mission, and goals of the political parties are. These are mentioned in the manifestoes, which are however long and time consuming to read for an ordinary voter. A good leader can convey this message in a short time, facilitating the voters to choose a political party. It also projects the personality of the leader of the party. Such discourses will add the much-required political flavour in the otherwise routine election campaigning. A prime ministerial debate will certainly establish a healthy political culture amidst the existing classical and outdated electioneering practice.