UPDATE: Madhav Kumar becomes new Nepal PM

For Madhav Kumar Nepal, life has come a full circle -- the soft-spoken and moderate Communist leader who had to quit as chief of his party after a poll debacle today became Prime Minister of the nascent republic of Nepal.     

The 56-year-old, whose family migrated from Bihar to Nepal more than 200 years ago, replaces the powerful Maoist supremo Prachanda, whose resignation as prime minister after a bitter dispute with the President plunged Nepal into a political crisis earlier this month.     

Nepal, who had been the General Secretary the moderate Communist Party of Nepal-United Marxist Leninist from 1993 to 2008, brings with him years of political experience as also administrative acumen.     

Involved in the Communist movement since 1969, Nepal, who is said to have been inspired by noted Indian scholar Rahul Sankrityayan and Russian revolutionary writer Maxim Gorky, had been a deputy prime minister in the nine-month-old CPN-UML-led minority government in 1994 and a leader of opposition in the National Assembly.     

Considered a confident and prudent politician, Nepal suffered a blow when CPN-UML ended at third spot -- behind the Maoists and Nepali Congress -- in the April 10, 2007 Constituent Assembly elections and lost in both the constituencies he was contesting from.

Nepal, who resigned from the party post on April 12, 2008 taking moral responsibility for the electoral debacle, has now staged a comeback and that too in the top echelons of power.     

The man who has been the head of the main Constitution Drafting Committee, faces a series of challenges -- taking the peace process forward, rewriting the statute and consolidating democracy in the country that abolished its 240-year monarchy last year to become a republic.     

As prime minister, Nepal will also have to tackle the Maoists, sulking after being pushed out of power. Born in a Brahmin family in southern Nepal's Gaur district on March 6, 1953, Nepal came to Sitamarhi in Bihar for studies but had to return after some time due to illness.

He did graduation in Commerce from the Tribhuvan University in 1973 and worked in banking and civil service before turning to full-time politics.Well-versed in English, Hindi, Maithili and Bhojpuri besides his mother tongue Nepali, Madhav Nepal was the founding member and politburo member of CPN-ML in 1978.     

He participated in the 1990 movement for restoration of democracy under the banner of United Left Front of Nepal.He actively took part in the people's movement of 2006 that ended the king's absolute rule and was one of the leaders who put his signature in the 12-point agreement between the Maoists and the political parties in November 2005 which brought the former rebels to the political mainstream.