DHAKA, APRIL 24: Opposition Jatiya Party (JP) in Bangladesh today formally split with one third of party MPs "expelling" former president H M Ershad from the party for indulging in "destructive acts" and replacing him with former premier Mizanur Rahman Chowdhury at the chairman's post.A parallel party council session here also elected Anwar Hussain Manju, Communication Minister in the Awami League-led government of "national consensus", as JP secretary-general and decided to form a 21-member party presidium and 101-member central working committee shortly.Eleven of the 33 party MPs who attended the two-day rebel "special council" ratified the expulsion of Ershad from JP for his "anti-party activities and indulging in destructive acts like politics of hartal (general strike)", dissident MP Golam Farooq Ovi told PTI.The dissidents accused ershad of forging an "opportunistic alliance" with Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) of former premier Khaleda Zia with the "sole aim to unseat the Awami Leaguegoverment".After his election as JP chairman, Chowdhury said the new party would not tolerate "anti-people acts of the government, but would protest in a democratic way without destroying the image or the economy of the country".Ershad, however, told PTI, "The parallel party council will not make any dent in my party. "Rather it will help my party. The betrayers have gone and they have failed to take a single central leader with them."Chowdhary, who was till recently the vice-chairman of Ershad's Jatiya Party, was the prime minister in his government and steered the party while the former president was in jail after his fall in a popular uprising in December 1990.Manju, a one-time close aide of Ershad was also cabinet minister in his government and the party's secretary-general till he was removed from the post and expelled from the party in January this year in the wake of his refusal to quit Sheikh Hasina's cabinet.Rebel party sources said 3,000 councillors and an equal number of delegatesattended the special council which elected the chairman and secretary-general.
