Submitting a letter to the party explaining the reasoning behind their quitting, various leaders including nearly two dozen central committee members have announced they are joining a movement for establishing a new political force under Bhattarai's leadership.
UCPN (Maoist) senior leader Bhattarai quit the party in September and has been working to form a new political force.
Though the leaders have not used the word resignation, Devendra Paudel, one of those who quit, said right after submitting their letter to the party that they are no longer associated with the UCPN (Maoist).
Paudel, Bhattarai's spouse Hisila Yami, Ram Chandra Jha, Ram Rijhan Yadav, Ganga Narayan Shrestha, Nawaraj Subedi, Khimlal Devkota, Ram Kumar Sharma, Bhim Prasad Gautam, Kalpana Dhamala, Swanam Saathi, Nandan Kumar Dutta, Kumar Paudel, Devendra Parajuli, Chinak Kurmi and Balwati Sharma are among those quitting the UCPN (Maoist) Tuesday. About a dozen of them were members of the first Constituent Assembly (CA).
"We have been lobbying for a long time for a new political force within the party, but the leadership seemed reluctant to transform the party into something new," Paudel said. "Thus we decided to quit the party and join the movement led by Bhattarai."
Some lawmakers, including Prabhu Sah, Ram Karki, Bhakti Pandey, Shree Jagebu and Dhani Ram Paudel, who were in Bhattarai's camp in the past, have not quit the party yet.
The leaders quitting the UCPN (Maoist) have said that they will hold a campaign in all 75 districts to form the new political force.
They have blamed the party for not convening a meeting of its central committee since nearly a year back. "We could not remain mute spectators to the deviation of the UCPN (Maoist) and its leadership ignoring our demand for change," Ganga Narayan Shrestha told Republica. According to the leaders, the UCPN (Maoist) has not summoned a central committee meeting since last December.
Over half a dozen of the party leaders had reached the UCPN (Maoist) party office at Parisdanda to submit their signatures and their justification letter to the party. On receiving the letter, UCPN (Maoist) chief secretary Hitraj Pandey said that he will inform the party chairman about the development.
40 UCPN maoists protested DR Baburam Bhattarai