Nepalese Parliament's fourth bid to elect a prime minister fell flat on Friday as both Maoist chief Prachanda and his NC rival Ram Chandra Poudyal failed to win simple majority in the 601-strong House, plunging the country into a deeper political crisis in the absence of a government.
Fity-five-year-old Prachanda, a former prime minister, managed to bag only 213 votes, with 99 members opposing his candidature.
Interestingly, 26 Maoist lawmakers did not turn up for the voting, which came more than five weeks after Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal resigned following intense Maoist pressure.
Poudyal, 65, also failed to touch the magic figure of 301, receiving just 122 votes in favour and 245 against, forcing the House to fix another round of voting for August 18.
Friday's election came a day after Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's special envoy Shyam Saran held hectic parleys with top leaders of Nepal in an effort to defuse the political tension in the country.
During the third round of voting on August 2, Prachanda had secured 259 votes while Poudyal got 124.
Hours before the fourth round of voting on Friday, a smaller Communist party having nine members in Parliament witnessed a split.
The new party named CPN-ML (Socialist) was formed after the split of the CPN-Marxist Leninist led by C P Mainali, who accused the