Other States - Assam

Asom Gana Parishad expels P.K. Mahanta

Special Correspondent

Show cause notices to 4 legislators for defying party whip

Former Assam Chief Minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta.

GUWAHATI: The Asom Gana Parishad on Sunday expelled its founder president and former Assam Chief Minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta from the party for his alleged anti-party activities.

The steering committee, which met in the upper Assam town Tinsukia, decided to expel Mr. Mahanta from the party and issue show cause notices to four party legislators — Sahidul Alam Choudhury, Gunin Hazarika, Bubul Das and Utpal Dutta — for defying the party whip and attending a convention organised by Mahanta loyalists here on June 27.

A confidant of the former Chief Minister and general secretary of the newly-formed Sanmilita Yuba Samaj, Assam, Pranab Goswami told The Hindu that now there was no option left for Mr. Mahanta's followers but to form a new party.

Mr. Goswami said party president Brindaban Goswami would be solely responsible for the weakening of the AGP. He said grassroots AGP workers who are with Mr. Mahanta would launch a statewide agitation against Mr. Brindaban Goswami.

Placed for ratification

The decision of the steering committee was placed before the central executive committee for ratification.

The steering committee had served a show cause notice on Mr. Mahanta for the second time for criticising the party leadership in a television interview.

The AGP had issued a whip prohibiting its party leaders and workers from participating in the convention organised under the banner of the Sanmilita Yuba Samaj Assam, floated recently by some of Mahanta's loyalists.

However the four legislators against whom the steering committee decided to issue show cause notice and their followers in various districts defied the party whip and attended the convention that was inaugurated by Mr. Mahanta.

The AGP had taken strong exception to the "motivated statements against the party issued by Mr. Mahanta in a section of print and electronic media" as they lowered the party's image in the eyes of the people.

The steering committee had procured the relevant tape of the interview in a local satellite channel in which Mr. Mahanta had alleged that some leaders who had split the AGP with the help of the Congress in 1991 were now calling the shots.

Stripped of party posts

Mr. Mahanta was earlier served a show-cause notice for his statements against the party last year. He was stripped of all party posts and banned from campaigning outside his Assembly constituency. Although the ban was withdrawn later, the party posts enjoyed by Mr. Mahanta were not restored.

He had quit as the AGP president in September 2001 in the midst of bigamy charges levelled against him by a suspended lady official of the Assam Legislative Assembly Secretariat, Sanghamitra Bharali. The former Chief Minister, however, strongly denied the allegation and described it as a conspiracy to malign him and the party.

Political hibernation

He went into political hibernation while the party elected Mr. Brindaban Goswami as the president on September 6, 2001. He made efforts for a comeback and contested for the post of president in the organisational elections held in Janaury this year. He, however, lost to Mr. Goswami who was re-elected at the party's Tezpur conference.

Mr. Mahanta led the six-year-long anti-foreigners' agitation in 1979 as the then president of the All Assam Students' Union (AASU) and was one of the three signatories of the Assam Accord signed by the student body and the erstwhile All Asam Gana Sangram Parishad (AAGSP) with the Centre and the State Government in 1985 that brought the movement to an end. He became Chief Minister for the first time when he came to power in the same year and again in 1996 when the regional party returned to power.

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