Nepal PM Balen Shah Sparks Border Row With India, Says Both Nations Have Encroached on Each Other’s Territory

Nepal Prime Minister Balen Shah on Sunday reignited the long-running India-Nepal border dispute after claiming that both countries had encroached on each other’s territory.

Addressing Parliament for the first time since taking office earlier this year, the 35-year-old leader said he had recently learned that territorial encroachments were not limited to one side. Referring to the disputed regions of Lipulekh, Limpiyadhura and Kalapani, Shah called for a fact-based approach involving historians, surveyors and technical experts from both countries.

“You will be surprised to know a fact that I have learnt recently, only after becoming Prime Minister. India has not only encroached Nepali territory, but Nepal has also encroached Indian territory in many places,” Shah told lawmakers, urging both nations to resolve the issue “as friends.”

However, Nepal’s Foreign Ministry later clarified that the Prime Minister’s remarks referred to cross-border occupation and no-man’s land areas rather than any official territorial claim by Nepal. The ministry said land used by citizens on one side of the border could, in some cases, fall within the territory of the other country due to missing boundary markers and overlapping land use.

The clarification failed to quell the political storm in Kathmandu. Opposition lawmakers demanded evidence for Shah’s assertion and called for the remarks to be removed from parliamentary records. Former foreign minister Pradip Gyawali reportedly sought an apology, while border experts rejected the suggestion that Nepal had ever officially encroached on Indian territory.

Former Nepal ambassadors to India, including Nilambara Acharya and Deep Kumar Upadhyay, also pushed back against the Prime Minister’s comments, saying there is no official record of Nepal occupying Indian land and noting that most border issues between the two countries have already been resolved.

The controversy comes amid fresh tensions over the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra route through Lipulekh. Nepal recently lodged diplomatic protests with both India and China, reiterating its claim that Lipulekh, Limpiyadhura and Kalapani are integral parts of Nepal under the 1816 Sugauli Treaty. India has rejected the claim, describing it as a unilateral expansion of Nepal’s territorial assertions.

The disputed areas lie near the tri-junction of India, Nepal and China. The issue escalated in 2021 when the government led by KP Sharma Oli released a new political map depicting Lipulekh, Limpiyadhura and Kalapani as part of Nepal, a move India rejected as a unilateral cartographic assertion.