Fed up with the political stalemate in Nepal, 22 smaller parties in the Parliament Sunday threatened to launch a major stir if the three main players fail to elect a new Prime Minister Monday, accusing them of holding the nation hostage for their own interests.

As Nepal readies for a fifth round of voting in the parliament Monday, the 22 fringe political parties warned that they would take to protests both inside and outside the parliament to exert pressure on the ‘big 3′.

“We will surround the rostrum, boycott voting in the parliament and launch other forms of protests to exert pressure on the big three,” Sunil Manandhar, general secretary of CPN-United told.

Nepal’s political deadlock has refused to end ever since Madhav Kumar Nepal stepped down bowing to Maoists’ pressure in June, and the major political players — the CPN-Maoists, the CPN-UML and the Nepali Congress — have failed to arrive at any common understanding.

“During the meeting of the 22 political outfits, we have decided to launch strong protest programmes if the big three parties failed to elect a new Prime Minister,” Manandhar said.

“It is not fair to put the country hostage to serve the interest of the three big parties,” he pointed out. The grouping includes all parties except Unified CPN-Maoist, Nepali Congress and CPN-UML.

A day ahead of the fifth round of voting, there seemed to be no move in positions of the main parties. Following a meeting of its office-bearers, Nepali Congress reiterated that it will not withdraw its candidate Ramchandra Poudyal from the prime ministerial race, and decided to contest in Monday’s run-off.

“The meeting decided to retain our PM’s claim… We are unable to trust Maoist leaders at this hour,” senior NC leader Krishna Sitaula said.

Minister for Law and Justice Prem Bahadur Singh said the fringe parties have warned of strong protests if they found no sign of progress by Monday.

“We urged the CPN-UML not to remain undecided and vote for either of the candidates in the fifth run-off poll,” he said.

Maoist chief Prachanda and Nepali Congress Vice President Poudyal are in the fray for the Prime Ministerial election.

However, a result in highly unlikely given that the CPN-UML, three Madhesi parties and some other fringe parties are not participating in the election.