Mani Rana on the funeral of the "most acceptable face of Nepalese communism"

Tens of thousands lined the route as the body of the veteran leader was taken on a four-hour funeral procession to the riverbank where the last rites were administered.

A Nepalese army band played the Last Post and mourners observed a two-minute silence. The Nepalese army fired a 19-gun salute as Mr Adhikari's son Prakash lit the funeral pyre.

Before the ceremony, thousands of people bearing flowers, including Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala, had formed long queues to file past his body, which was lying in state.

Day of mourning

The veteran communist leader died on Monday aged 78. He had fallen into a coma after suffering a heart attack while campaigning for the country's general elections in May.

Indian PM Vajpayee remembered Adhikari's role in India's independence

Flags flew at half-mast across Nepal and Tuesday was declared a national day of mourning for Mr Adhikari, a former prime minister and chairman of Nepal's Communist Party (NCP-UML).

He was the second political leader to be given a state funeral in Nepal after the death of Ganesh Man Singh in 1997, a veteran freedom fighter.

Tributes poured in from dignitaries in Nepal as well as from officials in China, Pakistan and India.

Outgoing Indian Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, paid tribute to Mr Adhikari's role in the independence movement that fought British rule of the Indian subcontinent.

"The Indian people cannot forget his contribution for their motherland's independence," Mr Vajpayee said.

NCP-UML General Secretary Madhav Kumar Nepal said: "He was a popular person and a politician that we will never be able to replace."

Grass-roots approach

Mr Adhikari, who helped to popularise communism in Nepal, was elected general secretary of the Communist Party of Nepal in 1953 and remained its head until it merged with another communist group in 1990. He was elected its chairman in the same year.

King Birendra: Stripped of absolute power by Adhikari and others

He became prime minister in November 1994. But his minority government was ousted in a confidence vote after nine months.

Mr Adhikari was part of a popular movement that stripped Nepal's King Birendra of absolute power and turned him into a constitutional monarch. Nepal became a multi-party democracy in 1990.

He was best known for his grass-roots approach to development. He began the "make your own village" programme in which people who had flooded the cities in search of jobs were encouraged to return to their villages to work at the local level.

His party is currently one of the three ruling coalition partners, along with the Nepali Congress and the pro-India Nepal Sadbhavana Party.

Candidate

Mr Adhikari was the NCP-UML's prime ministerial candidate for the May elections.

His death will cause a delay in polling in the two constituencies he was contesting, but voting in the five other Kathmandu constituencies will proceed on 3 May as planned. The second phase of the election will take place on 17 May.