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KATHMANDU, Monday (AFP) Nepal's seven leftwing parties Sunday together handed over a memorandum to Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba demanding the restoration of fundamental rights suspended since emergency rule was imposed last November.

They also demanded that the emergency not be reimposed when it expires on August 29.

The seven political parties are the main opposition Nepal Communist Party-United Marxist and Leninist (NCP-UML), NCP-Marxist Leninist and Maoist, NCP-Unity, NCP-Marxist, the People's Front Nepal, NCP-Burning Torch and the Nepal Peasants' and Workers' Party.

The leftists drafted the memorandum at a meeting Sunday at the NCP-UML headquarters in Kathmandu, they said in a press release.

In it they also demanded that legislative polls slated for November 13 be free ands fair and that the government begin peace talks before the polls with Maoists rebels who launched an insurgency in 1996 for a communist republic.

Two rounds of talks between the Maoists and the government earlier this year failed to come up with any tangible solution.

Deuba has said that for dialogue to resume, the rebels have first to lay down their arms.

"In spite of the long emergency rule, the government has failed to maintain peace and order in the country," the memorandum quoted NCP-UML general secretary Madhav Kumar Nepal as saying.

"The people, who are already reeling under the prevailing disorder, instability, bad administration and exploitation, have to suffer the natural calamities," he said, referring to monsoon floods which have killed more than 400 people.

"The insensitive government's failure to fulfil its responsibility of providing relief to the affected has added to the grief of the suffering people," Nepal said. 

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