In the aftermath of KP Sharma Oli’s resignation as Nepal’s Prime Minister, claims that he was the only Nepalese PM to never visit India gained traction on social media.
Oil resigned as Nepal PM on September 9 amid massive student-led protests in the country over charges of corruption and nepotism. The violent unrest that followed left 30 people dead and hundreds injured.
On September 9, WION journalist Sidhant Sibal (@sidhant) said that he was the first and only Nepal Prime Minister “who never visited India during his term”. At the time this was written, the post racked up more than 600,000 views. (Archive)
KP Sharma Oli is the first and only Nepal Prime Minister who never visited India during his term.
— Sidhant Sibal (@sidhant) September 9, 2025
This claim was also shared by several other X users, such as OMKARSINGH1992, @ramnivaskumar and @Hakla_Sarook. (Archives: 1, 2, 3)
Screenshots below:
Fact Check
To verify the authenticity of the claim, we ran a relevant keyword search on Google. This led us to an article by The New Indian Express, published on February 20, 2016, titled “Nepalese PM Oli arrives on six-day India visit.”
According to the report, it was KP Sharma Oli’s first foreign trip as the Prime Minister of Nepal, spanning six days, across New Delhi, Uttarakhand, Gujarat and Maharashtra.
A press notice, issued by the Union ministry of external affairs on February 12, 2016, about Oli’s trip to India between February 19 and 24, 2016, corroborates this.
Thereafter, we ran another relevant keyword search. This led us to an article by Business Standard, dated April 6, 2018, on his three-day visit to India.
A press release by the Union ministry of external affairs from May 12, 2018, corroborates Oli’s April trip.
On April 7, 2018, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi also posted on X about hosting the Nepalese PM.
It is India’s honour to host Prime Minister Mr. K.P. Sharma Oli. Here are glimpses from the ceremonial welcome at Rashtrapati Bhavan this morning. pic.twitter.com/QRZaOmpLUq
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) April 7, 2018
We cross-checked and found that during both his visits, he was serving as Nepal’s Prime Minister. KP Sharma Oli had been in power as the elected leader between October 2015 and August 2016 (his first visit as PM was in February 2016) and then from February 2018 till July 2021 (his second visit was in April 2018).
Reports from news outlets such as The Times of India, The New Indian Express, The Economic Times and others suggested that KP Sharma Oli was scheduled to visit India mid-September, which would have marked his third official visit to India as the Nepalese Prime Minister.
We also noticed that WION journalist Siddhant Sibal added a thread to his initial X post about Oli being the only Nepalese PM to never visit India, where he clarified that Oli did not visit during his third term.
Thus, KP Sharma Oli, who recently stepped down as the Prime Minister of Nepal in the face of massive protests, visited India twice as acting Prime Minister of Nepal — once in 2016 and then again in 2018. Claims by those, including a journalist, that he was the first Nepalese Prime Minister to have never visited India are false.
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