The Bahujan Samaj Party Tuesday said it has expelled senior leader Imran Masood, a prominent face of the party in western Uttar Pradesh, for alleged anti-party activities and indiscipline.
In a statement, BSP Saharanpur district unit president Janeshwar Prasad said Masood, a former independent MLA, was warned on several occasions not to indulge in "anti-party activities and indiscipline" but it did not yield any result, following which he had to be expelled.
Masood questioned the district unit's authority to expel him. "I was included in the party by the BSP supremo (Mayawati). How can the district unit president expel me?" he told reporters in Saharanpur.
Masood, an influential Muslim leader from Saharanpur district, did not attend a meeting of BSP leaders and office-bearers chaired by party chief Mayawati in Lucknow on August 23 and was recently in the news for praising Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.
In March 2014, he was arrested on charges of hate speech after he threatened to "chop" Narendra Modi, who was the BJP's prime ministerial candidate, "into pieces". Masood, a Congress candidate from Saharanpur for the Lok Sabha polls that year, made the remark during election campaign.
Just before the Assembly elections last year, Imran Masood joined the Samajwadi Party and later moved to the BSP.
The BSP said in its release that when he joined in, he was clearly told he would be given a Lok Sabha ticket from Saharanpur only after an assessment of his work.
"In the local body elections, when he insisted for a ticket for the Saharanpur mayor's post for a family member, it was given on the condition that the Saharanpur Lok Sabha ticket would be considered for him only if his family member won the mayor's seat, but the seat was lost," the release stated.
It further added that Masood also did not work towards adding new members to the party.
Meanwhile, Masood told reporters in Saharanpur he will take a decision regarding his future course of action after consulting his supporters.
A nephew of former Union minister, the late Rasheed Masood, Imran Masood was elected MLA from Muzaffarabad seat (Behat seat after delimitation) in Saharanpur district in 2007 state elections.
He had also contested the Lok Sabha election on a Congress ticket in 2014 and 2019 from Saharanpur.
