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KATHMANDU, Wednesday (AFP) Nepal's royal-appointed government has proposed holding non-partisan local elections, officials said raising fears of a return to decades of party-less rule that were ended by 1990 mass protests.

Home Minister Dharma Bahadur Thapa floated the prospect of party-less elections for some 200,000 local council posts, which have been vacant since July after the former government decided the war-torn kingdom could not hold polls.

Sources close to the minister told AFP that Thapa made the proposal at a public meeting Sunday in Birgunj, some 260 kilometres (162 miles) south of Kathmandu.

"The government is planning to hold local council elections without the representation of political parties and without any party colour," Thapa told the function.

He said that if local officials were free of affiliation with Nepal's 125 political parties, "they would be above party politics and can concentrate more on rural development."

Local officials control the purse-strings for small-scale projects and often have a more visible influence on Nepal's rural majority than the Kathmandu government. Their absence has made foreign donors leery about how aid will be spent, according to officials in Kathmandu.

Meanwhile the two man parties came together in denouncing the prospect of partyless polls.

"How can a home minister utter such irresponsible remarks?" asked senior NCP-UML leader Bharat Mohan Adhikari.

He warned that a "chaotic and dangerous" situation could emerge if partyless elections were held.

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