Founder president of the Asom Gana Parishad and its most visible face, Prafulla Kumar Mahanta, was on Sunday expelled from the party for six years for anti-party activities.

Contrary to expectations, however, the AGP's executive committee did not suspend four of Mahanta's staunch loyalists and legislators.

The decision was taken at the party's steering committee meeting and later endorsed by the executive committee at the upper Assam town of Tinsukia.

"The party cannot go on tolerating indiscipline. This time, we will have to take some tough decisions, no matter how painful and unfortunate they might be," a senior party leader said before the meeting.

Mahanta, twice chief minister of Assam and at one time the AGP's undisputed leader, found himself to be on the sidelines after a second marriage scandal in the immediate aftermath of the party's defeat in the 2001 assembly elections.

Of late, the former chief minister has been making a lot of anti-party remarks. He capped the dissidence by attending the convention of his loyalists organised under the Sanmilita Yuva [Images] Samaj, Asom to float a 'third front' bypassing the party leadership.

Apart from Mahanta, at least four other party legislators and several other functionaries had attended the June 27 convention of the SYSA.

The four legislators are Sahidul Alam Choudhury, Bubul Das, Utpal Dutta and Gunin Hazarika.

Meanwhile SYSA general secretary and staunch Mahanta loyalist Pranab Goswami called Mahanta's expulsion "anti-democratic and anti-people. The former chief minister was however not immediately available for comment.

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