PTI - Friday, 11-50 pm IST

Kathmandu, Apr 21: Buckling under mass protests, Nepal’s King Gyanendra on announced that he will hand over political power he had assumed 14 months ago to the people and asked the seven-party alliance to name a new Prime Minister.

"Executive power shall from this day be returned to the people," the beleaguered King said as tens of thousands of pro-democracy activists virtually laid a siege of the capital for the second day today defying curfew and shoot-at-sight orders.

The announcement by a grim-faced monarch, in a 10-minute address to the nation on the state-run Nepal elevision, came a day after Prime Minister ##Gl##Manmohan Singh’s##G## special envoy Karan Singh bluntly told him to restore multi-party democracy and hold a dialogue with political parties.

It remained unclear how the transition will take place but the 58-year-old King asked the seven-party alliance, spearheading the agitation against him, to recommend at the earliest a name for an interim Prime Minister till the election process is over.

Till such time the new Cabinet is constituted, the present Council of Ministers would continue to function, said the monarch, who had seized the executive power after dislodging the elected government of Sher Bahadur Deuba on February one last year.

The King said he was returning the executive power to the people according to Article 35 of the Constitution.

The King, who gave no dates for holding elections, said that he was committed to multi-party democracy and constitutional monarchy and expressed the hope that peace and order would be restored in the country.

The monarch’s announcement came after over two weeks of bitter protests by pro-democracy activists who demanded an end to his rule and restoration of total democracy in the Himalayan Kingdom.

The seven-party alliance launched an anti-King nationwide general strike on April six following which the security forces clamped down on protesters leaving over a dozen of them dead and hundreds wounded.

When the King sacked the Deuba government in 2005, he had blamed politicians for failing to hold elections and tackle the Maoist insurgency which has left 12,500 people dead in a decade in Nepal.