Author: Correspondent
Publication: The Telegraph
Date: November 24, 2007
URL: http://telegraphindia.com/1071124/asp/bengal/story_8586841.asp
Suspended, Idris Ali says he is proud of 'movement'
The Congress today suspended Idris Ali for his role in Wednesday's street
riots even as Mamata Banerjee came under increasing pressure to act against
Sultan Ahmed, who had admitted his boys' role in the violence.
State Congress working president Pradip Bhattacharya
said Ali was suspended for an indefinite period. A notice, asking why he should
not be expelled from the party, has been served on him.
However, the president of the Congress-backed
All India Minority Forum was brazen in his defiance. "I feel proud to
have been associated with the movement," Ali said.
"My suspension would cost the party dear
during next year's panchayat elections," he added.
The forum led by Ali had called the morning
peak-hour roadblock that turned violent on Wednesday. The army had to be called
on the city's streets after 15 years as violent mobs laid siege to a part
of the city.
The decision to suspend Ali followed a meeting
of key Congress office bearers, including former state unit chief Somen Mitra,
who is said to be his mentor.
Suspended, Ali, a former chairman of the party's
minority cell, accused the state Congress of being "isolated from the
minorities, particularly a vast section of the Muslim community".
"The leaders failed to understand the
spontaneous protest from the minorities, particularly a vast section of the
Muslim community in the state, against Taslima Nasreen's stay in Calcutta."
State Congress general secretary Jayanta Bhattacharya
described Ali's remarks today as "gross violation of the party's discipline".
The leadership is left with no option but
to expel Ali, he said.
Trinamul Congress sources said Mamata "snubbed"
Sultan Ahmed today when he called her at the party headquarters to say he
had no control on his "boys".
On the day of the violence, he said: "Why
should I stop my boys? What happened today should serve as an eye-opener for
the government."
A Trinamul leader said: "Didi did not
buy Sultan's arguments."
A large section of the party's working committee
has told Mamata that the general secretary post should at least be taken away
from him.
The most vocal among them was Trinamul's minority
cell president M. Nur Uzzuman. "The party's image has definitely taken
a severe beating because of Sultan's involvement in the riots. He has to be
removed," Nur said.
Like Ali, Ahmed remained unfazed.
"I was not born a Trinamul general secretary.
So, I don't mind being removed from the post for sharing the concerns of a
vast section of my community," he said.
