Nepal PM quits to end political stalemate

Amid strong protests from the UCPN (Maoist), Nepal's Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal finally announced his resignation on Wednesday after assuming the post for nearly thirteen months. Nepal announced his resignation at a function organised in Baluwatar. It is already too late to table the annual policies, programmes and the fiscal budget in the Legislature-Parliament. Despite having a clear majority in the House, I decided to tender my resignation as it would not be right to keep the nation at indecision and confusion in situation like this, ekantipur.com quoted Nepal as saying. Nepal underscored the need to focus on the peace process and drafting of the new statute by tapping most of the extended period of the Constituent Assembly. After making the announcement, the outgoing Prime Minister said his resignation would mark an end to the longstanding political deadlock and all other problems facing the country. He became prime minister in May 2009 after the previous government - led by the Maoists - resigned following a row with the president over the firing of the army chief. The prime minister said he had hoped to negotiate with the Maoist party to move forward with the peace process, but they had refused to fulfil their commitments to the deal, which include integrating their former fighters into the national army and disbanding their paramilitary wing.