Nepali people have been like a statistician who is said to be comfortable with one hand on the furnace and the other in the freeze. At times it had politicians like Krishna Prasad Bhattarai, who exercised unbelievable oratory skills. He was asked by an Indian journalist regarding the lack of participation of Madhesi people in the Nepali Army during his state visit to India. He had immediately requested to make the same query to his counterpart, Prime Minister V P Singh of India, as to why there was no Bihari participation in the Indian Army. The journalist was glaringly left speechless. He was followed by politicians like Sher Bahadur Deuba, whose speech could not be understood due to the torture meted out to him during the tyrannical Panchayat system. So was the saint leader Shushil Koirala. Despite this, both the political leaders at least communicated with the people. On the other end of the spectrum was a demagogue like K P Oli, who spoke for hours together using satirical proverbs to make his point. The other prime minister Prachanda said quite the opposite at two functions held on the same day. Now we have Balendra Shah who spoke for only 27 minutes during his entire election campaign, but still bagged near to two-thirds majority, short of just two seats. Such was the spell that people voted for his party symbol, the bell, without even knowing the candidate. It can be glaringly seen by the voting in Sarlahi district, where people voted overwhelmingly for the Rastriya Swatantra Party candidate Kishori Sah Kamal whose candidacy was annulled by the Election Commission after his name appeared in the financial blacklist. The runner up from the Nepali Communist Party, Matrika Yadav, was declared winner by the Supreme Court despite receiving less than half the votes bagged by Kishori Sah. People obviously wanted to listen to the new Prime Minister, especially after he secured a landslide victory for his party and himself. Even his supporters were surprised by his silence. They had to hurriedly patch up this strange phenomenon by saying that the nation was tired of talkative prime ministers in the past. They cite the overwhelming victory handed over by the people as support for the silence of Balen Shah. People were further astonished by the walkout of the Prime Minister from the Parliament during the delivery of the annual plan and the programme by President Ram Chandra Paudel. It was further aggravated by his absence during the discussion of the routine plans and programmes in the Parliament – the norm in any parliamentary system. He evaded this by exploiting the gap present in the regulation governing this programme, which mentions that the Prime Minister could depute one of his ministers to answer lawmakers' queries. The opposition demanded the presence of the Prime Minister, but it has ignored by the publication of a month-long schedule sans his participation in the parliamentary proceedings. Balen's supporters have justified this by saying that the earlier prime ministers used to toil for hours together in the Parliament and spoke sweet nothings when the need was to work. It is what Balen is precisely doing, however little realising that in a parliamentary system, the presence of the prime minister during parliamentary proceedings is also a responsibility. The Prime Minister's walkout during the Presidential address, along with his continued absence from Parliament during parliamentary proceedings despite concerns raised by the opposition, constitutes a clear violation of parliamentary norms. The government is exploiting gaps in the regulations, as the provision allowing the deputation of another minister to answer questions applies only in situations where the Prime Minister is either out of the country or physically unable to attend parliamentary proceedings. This may attract the attention of parliamentary democracies around the globe requesting the prime minister initially. If the government turns a deaf ear to it, then they may express alarm over the existing situation in Nepal. One can imagine how bad the political situation could become if Britain, with whom Nepal has the oldest country-to-country relation, describes the Nepali political situation as unfortunate. In addition, global institutions like the International Parliamentary Committee may publish a report describing the dilution of parliamentary values in Nepal. Furthermore, bilateral and multilateral donors may reduce their funding citing deteriorating parliamentary democracy in the country. If this happens it will not augur well for Nepal, which has been affected economically due to rising prices brought about by the Iran-US war in the Middle East. The government of Balen Shah has been lately riddled by many such controversies. The verdicts of the Supreme Court declaring its actions one after another as illegal is a pointer to this direction. The organisation of rallies and demonstrations against it throughout the country is symbolic of its mishandling of the situations. The refusal to meet foreign dignitaries like the special envoy of President Trump and the foreign secretary of India, though appearing right on the basis of protocol, sounds otherwise when considered from the perspective of diplomacy. The country has received a majority government for the first time in many years. Even the opposition parties have supported its good works like the speedy delivery of license and passports, which used to take a long time in the past. But it has embarked on activities which have been carried out with little preparation bringing inconvenience to the people, especially during the clearance of the slums. It is certainly not a harbinger of good omen.