Padam Kunwar, a 26-year-old chef who assaulted Maoist chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal last November, registered himself as an independent candidate in the leader´s constituency in the capital Kathmandu. [break]
"I have fielded my candidacy not to defeat anyone but to win the election," Kunwar, who was a member of the Maoist party until June last year, told reporters on Thursday.
More than 100 parties, including three major ones -- the centrist Unified Marxist-Leninist, the Nepali Congress and the radical Maoists -- have fielded candidates for 240 seats in the polls expected on November 19.
Nepal installed a caretaker government in March tasked with steering the country towards only its second national election since the end of a civil war in 2006.
The impoverished Himalayan country has operated in a legislative vacuum since May 2012 after a constituent assembly elected in 2008 failed to produce a new constitution.
"I feel sad for not being able to draft the constitution earlier. But I want to assure all that the upcoming parliament would accomplish the task," Dahal, better known as Prachanda, told reporters on Thursday, the deadline for filing nominations.
Nepal´s civil war pitting Maoists against government forces commanded by the now deposed monarchy lasted 10 years and claimed more than 16,000 lives.
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