In Nepal, the parliament has again failed to elect a new Prime Minister in the 16th round of voting held this afternoon as the lone Nepali Congress candidate could not secure the required simple majority. Unified CPN(Maoist) candidate Prachanda withdrew from the electoral fray before the 8th round of voting in September, leaving Poudel as the lone candidate to contest the election.Announcing the result in parliament Speaker Subhash Nemwang said out of a total of 101 lawmakers who took part in the voting process, Poudel secured only 82 votes in his favour, far below the minimum 300 votes required for his election. The Speaker announced that the next round of voting will take place on 15th of November.AIR Kathmandu Correspondent reports that out of the current 599 members in parliament, 498 members including the United CPN(Maoist), CPN(UML),Tarai parties and over a dozen smaller parties did not take part in the voting process in the absence of consensus among the major political parties to end the political deadlock.AIR correspondent C.K. Dorjee reports from Kathmandu that lack of consensus among Nepal's major political parties to address key issues relating to peace, constitution and power sharing has led to repeated failure in electing a new Prime Minister even after 16 rounds of voting, deepening the political crisis. In the meeting of three major parties held yesterday, the top leaders could not arrive at an agreement to find a way out of the current political uncertainty.The Maoist insisted that the priority be given to government formation that would pave way for concluding the peace process and tabling a full budget to end the financial crisis facing the nation. Both the Maoists and the UML have also requested the Nepali Congress to withdraw its candidate to amend the interim constitution to begin afresh a new process to elect the Prime Minister. But Nepali Congress insisted that peace process and drafting of the constitution be given top most priority and urged the Maoist to allow the caretaker government to table a full budget in the parliament for the current financial year.