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Updated on Tuesday:  Nepal’s prime minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal has resigned after the president overturned his decision to fire the army chief. The prime minister’s Maoists followers have threatened to take to the streets. More:

Nepal has been thrown into a political crisis as the country’s Prime Minister sacks the army chief and the President asks him to stay in his post. An AP report from Kathmandu on Monday noon:

Security forces went on high alert Monday to avert street clashes in Nepal’s capital amid a government power struggle over the prime minister’s attempts to fire the army chief.

The prime minister, from Nepal’s Maoist party, unleashed the crisis Sunday by trying to fire the army chief because of his moves to block the enlistment into the military of former Maoist rebels. The firing sparked mass protests and was later rejected by the country’s president, from the main opposition party.

Nepal’s Maoists fought a bloody, 10-year war against the government before joining the political mainstream in 2006 and winning the most votes during elections last year after the Himalayan country abolished its centuries-old monarchy. However, many of the former Maoist fighters remain restricted to U.N.-monitored barracks under a peace accord. More:

Spectre of a ‘soft coup’: From The Telegraph, Calcutta:

Close on the heels of a spillover of Indian diplomacy in Colombo on the election in Tamil Nadu, a similar challenge is unfolding in Nepal with implications on both sides of the border.

Within hours of sacking Nepal’s army chief General Rukmagat Katuwal today, Prime Minister Prachanda has been forced to commit ideological heresy for the second time in as many days.

Prachanda was to have begun a high-profile visit yesterday to China, the country which was the inspiration for his Maoist insurgency, but the trip has been cancelled with the likelihood of a “soft coup” over the dismissal of the army chief actually ousting the revolutionary Prime Minister from office instead. More:

What next for Nepal after Maoists sack army chief? Click here to read the Reuters report on what could happen next in the young Himalayan republic.

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