Parties urge people not to pay taxes

Nepal: Waging a war on country's finances, political parties in Nepal on

Monday urged people to stop paying utility bills and taxes as a part of their ongoing protest against the monarchy.

Fuel and food were becoming scarce as the city underwent the 12th day of a general strike called by the opposition against King Gyanendra's rule in the world's only Hindu kingdom.

Maoists and a seven-party alliance called the strike to force the king to return to democracy after the king sacked the government in February 2005 for failing to crush a Maoist insurgency in the Himalayan state.

Protesters marched through the streets in Rupendehi, a town bordering India, chanting anti-monarchy slogans.

Political parties began a campaign against the King by calling upon a kind of economic blockade by urging people to not to pay any tax to the regime.

"We will continue the protest till the democracy is restored in the country. Until then the public will not pay any tax to the government," said Secretary of Nepali Congress (Rupandehi Unit) Vijay Kumar.

The monarch held talks on the political situation with one former prime minister and was scheduled to meet two other ex-premiers later on Monday, local officials said.

But none of them is currently in the seven-party alliance that opposes him.

Gyanendra sacked the government and assumed full power in February 2005, vowing to crush a decade-old Maoist revolt in which more than 13,000 people have died.

He has offered to hold elections by April next year, but activists say he is not to be trusted and should immediately hand over power to an all-party government.