BIKRAM RAI

After demolishing large parts of the city to widen roads, the municipality and government have trained their sights on Kathmandu's squatter settlements like this one on the banks of the fetid Bagmati. Politicians settled supporters on the floodplains and public land in Kathmandu over the past 20 years to pad up vote banks, occupy prime real estate and muster numbers for street demonstrations. Many in the slums are millionaires with other houses and property in the city, and they now have so much political clout no politician dare evict them.

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Slum millionaires, DEWAN RAI
Vote bank politics is coming back to haunt the Bagmati's river bank