New Delhi- Influential Shia leader and lone Congress minister in Farooq Abdullah government Moulvi Iftikar Ansari, appears certain to face expulsion from the party in case he refuses to quit as a minister.
Taking exception to Farooq Abdullah’s overtures with the BJP, the Congress leadership feels that “it is right time” to ask Iftikhar to resign and work for “revitalising the party” in the state, highly placed sources said here tonight. In case Ansari refuses, the party will be left with no other alternative but to expel him, the sources added.
Incidentally, senior Congress leader Mufti Mohammad Syed had a long meeting with the newly appointed party president Sonia Gandhi, late last night. Mufti’s meeting with Sonia assumes significance in the background of wavering approach of former Congress chief Sita Ram Kesri with regard to party affairs in Kashmir, making it virtually defunct.
The party leaders are sore that no action was taken against Ansari even as he openly campaigned against the Congress candidates in just -concluded Lok Sabha elections in Kashmir. “Time has come now to show the Moulvi his right place” a senior AICC leader told this reporter.
(Kashmir Observer, 30 March, 1998)
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