LONDON - Nepal’s former prime minister Pushpa Kumar Dahal Prachanda claims India thought he was closer to Communist China than to India, but says it was wrong to think so.

Prachanda, who resigned as prime minister in May after less nine than months in office, said he wanted good relations with both of Nepal’s giant neighbours - India and China.

In an interview with the BBC in London Tuesday, Prachanda acknowledged that India supported the dialogue between his Maoists and other political parties after Nepal’s King Gyandendra assumed direct power in 2005.

But then, he said, New Delhi lost its warmth toward the Maoists when elections resulted in him becoming prime minister in August 2008.

Prachanda, who is chairman of the opposition party Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) (UCPN-M), is in the British capital on a private visit.

Reports in Nepal’s media say he is set to attend a convention of the Revolutionary International Movement, an umbrella of Communist groups.

In his interview Prachanda also advocated a unified security strategy between India, China and Nepal to counter US influence in South Asia, the BBC said.

His comments come after reports in Nepal’s press - denied by both Prachanda and New Delhi - that he had fallen out with India and the US because they had planned to attack China through Nepal’s soil and he had opposed them.

“The report is entirely misleading, inflammatory and groundless,” Prachanda said in comments published last week in the Maoist mouthpiece Janadisha.