Dogged by allegations of trying to buy MPs and fighting a leaked tape that purportedly caught a senior aide seeking NRS 500 million from a "friend" in China, Maoist chief, Mr Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda crashed out of Nepal's prime ministerial race on Sunday, ending the former rebels' hope of recapturing power through parliament.

The 55-year-old former revolutionary, who had become republican Nepal's first prime minister two years ago with thumping majority, failed to inch towards even simple majority in the 599-member parliament after a power-brokering deal with regional parties broke down following the eruption of a bribery scandal.

The two groups that hold the key to power - the ruling Communists and a front of four parties from the Terai plains - continued to sit on the fence as they had in the five earlier rounds too, preventing Prachanda as well as his rival, Nepali Congress leader, Mr Ram Chandra Poudel, from mustering the 300 votes required to win.

Facing dissent in his own party and a souring of relations with the international community, Mr Prachanda could poll only 240 votes with 101 MPs voting against him and 163 abstaining.

Mr Poudel fared even worse, garnering just 122 votes while 242 voted against him and 172 abstained.

Foreseeing a disastrous defeat, the Maoist top leadership held an emergency meeting ahead of the poll to decide that they will not take part in a seventh round of election. Instead, they will begin a dialogue with other political parties as well as civil society members in the quest for a new government.

However, it is not going to be an easy task for the former rebels who swept the election in 2008.

The party's as well as Mr Prachanda's own image has been badly tarnished with loss of credibility, refusal to lay down arms despite signing a peace accord and sheer thirst for power.

Though the Maoists are the largest party in parliament and Prachanda needed only 64 votes more to win, the former guerrillas' negotiations with other parties were tainted by rank opportunism on both sides.

The Maoists, who had fought against monarchy and for secularism, were ready to ally with royalists and Hindu parties to capture power.

Though the new government's tenure is less than a year with the chief mandate to ready a new constitution by May 2011, reports said the Maoists were ready to accept a power-sharing formula with regional parties from the Terai plains that would have seen an unprecedented three deputy prime ministers.

Prachanda also faced growing allegations of splitting parties to win support and agreeing to pay cash to defecting MPs.

Last week, Chandra Prakash Mainali of the Communist Party of Nepal-Marxist Leninist claimed he was offered NRS 50 million to vote for the Maoists.

When he declined, Mainali said his party was split by the former rebels with the dissenters voting for Prachanda.

Nepal was also rocked and polarised by the appearance of an audio tape which supposedly captures Maoist lawmaker and former minister Krishna Bahadur Mahara seeking NRS 500 million from a Chinese "friend" to buy 50 MPs ahead of Sunday's poll.

The Maoists have denied the allegations as baseless and blamed India, saying the Indian external intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing fabricated and distributed the tape as a conspiracy to ensure Prachanda's defeat.

Despite a convenient scapegoat, the fact remains that even four years after signing the peace pact and agreeing to dismantle their People's Liberation Army within six months, the Maoists have still refused to let go of their nearly 20,000-strong force.

An earlier leaked tape showed Prachanda boasting that he deliberately inflated the number of his army before a UN supervising team and that the money paid by the Nepal government as the PLA's salary is partly being used to buy arms and prepare for another grab at power.

While the authenticity of the phone tape, which also suggests the complicity of the Chinese government, is to be ascertained, the Maoists have gone out of their way to attack India.

The Maoists have also failed their own country. Though they forced Prime Minister, Mr Madhav Kumar Nepal, to resign in June, they have not been able to form a new government.

The country faces a funds crisis as the caretaker government has not passed the budget, absence of law and order, mushrooming corruption and a potential power disaster.

In an even greater crisis, the new constitution, the centrepiece of the peace accord, could not be promulgated last May, and now there are growing doubts if it will be ready even next year.