Kathmandu, May 23
Veteran Communist leader Madhav Kumar Nepal was today elected unopposed as the Prime Minister of Nepal, bringing to an end the nearly three-week long political crisis in the country.

The 56-year-old CPN-UML leader, who claims to have the support of 351 lawmakers in the 601-member Constituent Assembly, was the only candidate to have fileded nomination for the top post. The Maoists boycotted the voting process and said they would not join the new government.

Caretaker premier and Maoist supremo Prachanda and Maoist number two leader Baburam Bhattarai were absent during the parliament session today.

Nepal will replace Prachanda, who had resigned as the premier on May 4 in the wake of differences with President Ram Baran Yadav on the issue of sacking of the army chief.

Nepali Congress President Girija Prasad Koirala proposed 56-year-old Nepal's name for the post and CPN-UML Chairman Jhalanath Khanal seconded it along with representatives from 22 different parties, including the key Madhesi group - MPRF.

Speaker Subhas Nemwang declared Nepal as elected. Nepal, whose family migrated from Bihar to Nepal more than 200 years ago and who had part of his education in India, was a former Deputy Prime Minister in a nine-month government led by the Communist Party of Nepal-United Marxist Leninist in 1994-95. He had led the party for 15 years from 1993 to 2008. — PTI