Kathmandu, Dec 7 (IANS): President Ram Baran Yadav Friday granted six more days to the political parties to pick a new consensus prime minister.

Lalit Basnet, personal secretary of the president, told Xinhua that President Yadav extended the deadline by six days on the request of four political parties.

This is the second time that President Yadav has extended the deadline for the political parties to nominate their consensus prime ministerial candidate for the new government.

Pushpa Kamal Dahal, chairman of the Unified Communist Party of Nepal-Maoists (UCPN-M) met President Yadav early Friday morning and requested him to extend the deadline.

"I, representing the four political parties, requested the president to extend the deadline by five to seven days," Dahal told reporters after the meeting.

A meeting Thursday evening of four major political parties -- the Unified Communist Party of Nepal-Maoists (UCPN-M), the Nepali Congress (NC), the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML) and United Democratic Madhesi Front (UDMF) -- had decided to request the president to extend the deadline after they failed to agree on a common candidate to lead the new government.