Nepal presses ahead with elections

"There's no other option except to declare elections," government spokesman Mohammad Mohsin told AFP. "Those who don't agree should quit the government."

Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba had said he would hold polls if the rebels did not agree to resume talks by Thursday midnight to end the deadly nine-year revolt aimed at ousting the monarchy and installing a communist republic.

Maoists who control wide swathes of rural Nepal rejected the demand and warned they would sabotage the polls. They want elections held instead for a constituent assembly to draft a new constitution that would decide the monarchy's future role.

King Gyanendra dismissed parliament in 2002 and assumed executive powers amid deepening political turmoil and spiralling violence in Nepal where nearly half the population live below the poverty line.

He reappointed Deuba as prime minister last year after firing him in 2002 when he said he could not call an election due to Maoist violence.

Now analysts say Deuba has little choice but to go ahead with the polls if he wants to keep his job.

Gyanendra has been pressing for elections amid mounting international and domestic pressure for the restoration of democracy.

Since dismissing parliament, Gyanendra has ruled through a series of prime ministers he has appointed and who have been viewed as his puppets by many in the country. He reappointed Deuba with the mandate of holding elections and resuming talks with the Maoists.

An official close to Deuba quoted him as telling a cabinet meeting late Thursday that, "We have to go for general elections now."

But there was disagreement within the multi-party ruling coalition formed by Deuba about staging polls before talks with the rebels.

"We think we should make one more earnest effort to bring the Maoists to the negotiating table," said Bharat Mohan Adhikari, deputy premier and senior leader of the Nepal Communist Party-United Marxist and Leninist (NCP-UML).

Many analysts also doubt polls can be held amid daily battles between Maoists and security forces in what has become one of the world's deadliest civil conflicts, claiming more than 11,000 lives since 1996.