<p>55-year-old Prachanda, a former Prime Minister, managed to bag only 213 votes, with 99 members opposing his candidature.<br /><br />Interestingly, 26 Maoist MPs did not turn up for the voting, which came more than five weeks after Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal resigned following intense Maoist pressure.<br />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.<br /><br />Today's election came a day after 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.<br /><br />During the third round of voting on August 2, Prachanda had secured 259 votes while Poudyal got 124.<br /><br />Hours before the fourth round of voting today, a smaller Communist party having nine members in Parliament witnessed a split.<br /><br />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 Maoists of hatching conspiracy to divide his group.<br /><br />Ahead of the voting, the CPN-UML with the strength of 109 and the Madhesi alliance with the combine strength of 84 and other smaller parties decided to remain neutral.</p>
<p>55-year-old Prachanda, a former Prime Minister, managed to bag only 213 votes, with 99 members opposing his candidature.<br /><br />Interestingly, 26 Maoist MPs did not turn up for the voting, which came more than five weeks after Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal resigned following intense Maoist pressure.<br />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.<br /><br />Today's election came a day after 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.<br /><br />During the third round of voting on August 2, Prachanda had secured 259 votes while Poudyal got 124.<br /><br />Hours before the fourth round of voting today, a smaller Communist party having nine members in Parliament witnessed a split.<br /><br />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 Maoists of hatching conspiracy to divide his group.<br /><br />Ahead of the voting, the CPN-UML with the strength of 109 and the Madhesi alliance with the combine strength of 84 and other smaller parties decided to remain neutral.</p>