Kathmandu: Nepal's police chief called for a delay in November snap Parliamentary polls until April 2003 after a week of Maoist rebel attacks left more than 350 people dead, officials said.

Nepal's Election Commission had huddled together all major parties on September 12 to discuss arrangements for the November 13 vote, a date set two years ahead of schedule after Parliament was suddenly dissolved in May.

The meeting came after Maoist rebels launched three raids on security posts in the past week, leaving dead more than 350 people, according to tolls by government officials.

"In my view, the election should be postponed in view of the law and order situation," Pradeep Shumshere Rana, the chief of Nepal's regular police, told the party leaders.

"It would not be appropriate to hold the election in mid-November," said Rana, quoted by officials at the meeting.

Rana heads a force of 45,000 police that was long the main unit combating the Maoists, whose insurgency has left more than 4,700 people dead since February 1996.

The Army and a new armed police force were deployed against the rebels last year.

Security forces also recommended that the election be held in eight rounds, while political parties suggested only four.

Leaders across the political spectrum had blasted caretaker Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba for recommending King Gyanendra dissolve Parliament. The monarch took the action May 22 as Parliament looked set to end Emergency rule.

The king instead decreed a three-month extension of the special measures that gave authorities more power to impose curfews and detain suspected Maoists.

Nine months of Emergency expired August 28 and was greeted by nearly daily small bomb blasts in the normally peaceful capital Kathmandu.

Critics have said a free election will be nearly impossible when much of the country is under the control of the Maoists, who are fighting to overthrow the Constitutional monarchy, and other areas are under tight watch of security forces.

However, Nepal's political parties have seemed ready to accept the November 13 date for polls, with no leader expressing major reservations at the September 12 meeting.

Madhav Kumar Nepal, general secretary of the country's largest mainstream communist party, supported the November 13 date but urged security officials "to ensure a peaceful atmosphere to let voters participate without any fear".