At least 450 district leaders and cadres have defected the Netra Bikram Chand-led Communist Party of Nepal.

The defection was announced at a press conference organised by Rafat Sanchar Club in Bhaktapur today. 

Self-centered ideology, inefficiency, abstract and aimless programmes and directionless action plans, factions increasing within the party forced us to leave, said Yubraj Acharya, one of the defectors, who also was the central coordinator for the party-affiliated All Nepal Revolutionary Construction Workers Association.