Dr Kamal axes Subrata, Montu from Gono Forum

Gano Forum chief Dr Kamal Hossain has wielded the axe on Subrata Chowdhury and Mostafa Mohsin Montu, the known faces of the party, dropping the duo from the new 71-member central convener committee

The fresh committee has Dr Kamal as its president while Reza Kibria continues to be the general secretary.

Subrata Chowdhury was the executive president of the committee now defunct. Another executive President Abu Sayeed, too, could not make it to the new committee.

Reza Kibria, the son of former Awami League leader late finance minister SAMS Kibria, had joined the Gono Forum on Dec 30, 2018, prior to the 11th national election. Mostafa Mohsin Montu was the general secretary at the time.

A former chairman of Jubo League, Montu accompanied Dr Kamal since the inception of Gonoforum in 1993, when the former had left the Awami League.

Montu was expelled from the Awami League for defying the party rules the year before. Dr Kamal, too, was not in the good books of the Awami League leaders that time.

Montu was made general secretary of the Gono Forum in 2009.

Reza Kibria replaced Montu as general secretary in the special council of the party last April, following the 11th parliamentary election. Montu was an executive member in that committee but this time he failed to bag any post in the committee.

Former Awami League state minister for information Abu Sayeed joined the Gono Forum prior to the election and was made the first executive president in the special council.

MP Mokobbir Khan tops the list of committee members of the party.

It also includes the names of AOM Shafiqullah, Abdul Aziz, Mohsin Rashid, Advocate AHM Khalekuzzaman, Shantipada Ghosh, Jane Alam, Mejbahuddin Ahmed, Sagir Anwar, Advocate Suraiya Begum, Selim Akbar, Moshtak Ahmad and others.

"The list shows that those who were part of the Gono Forum since its inception and practiced democracy and a positive political culture, have been dropped off the committee. It's a committee that reflects the thought of a single individual, I believe," a disgruntled Rafiqul Islam Pathik, former training secretary of the Gono Forum, told bdnews24.com.

Many members included in the committee have been inactive for a long time in the party, he complained.

"And most of the active leaders have been left out."