Kathmandu, Apr 7: Nepali politicians went door-to-door or held last-minute rallies Monday on the last day of campaigning ahead of this week's polls for a constitutional assembly that will decide the Himalayan nation's political future.

Some 17.6 million people are eligible to vote in Thursday's elections, the first since communist rebels quit their 10-year armed struggled against Nepal's government and joined the political mainstream in a process that began in 2006.

Voters will elect members of the Constituent Assembly, which will rewrite the constitution and decide key issues for Nepal's future political system, such as the level of power granted to the prime minister. The country's major parties already have agreed to do away with the country's constitutional monarchy, which already had its powers sharply curtailed in 2006.

Nepali Congress, the largest political party in Nepal, said it was organizing political rallies and meetings in all the constituencies. The party has pledged to push for a republic and safeguard the country's democracy.

``We have public rallies in all the districts on the last day of campaigning to try to persuade the voters to choose us,'' senior party member Shobhakar Parajuli said.

Their main competitor, the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoists), the former communist rebels, were sending small groups of campaigners from house to house pledging to be a new breed of politician that can break free of the squabbles of past governments.

``Our plan has been to reach as many doorsteps as possible,'' senior Maoist leader Basanta Man Pun said.

Nepal's election law requires all campaigning to stop two days before an election, though it has been common in the past for parties to defy the law.

The Election Commission announced plans to strictly enfore the ban starting at midnight Monday, barring even newspapers from publishing opinion pieces on the polls.

Security has been stepped up, with thousands of police officers fanning across the country, the Home Ministry said. The government has hired helicopters to patrol mountainous areas and fly police to any trouble spots.

Voters will be given two ballot papers. First, they choose candidates to be directly elected to the assembly. Second, they choose a political party under a system in which parties get seats proportional to the number of votes they recieve.