JOIN USA three-member disciplinary committee headed by Defence Minister A K Antony –which also had Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Motilal Vohra—suspended Kalmadi, who had fallen out of favour with the party since irregularities in organising the Commonwealth Games emerged.
Making the announcement, Congress general secretary and chairperson of the media department of the party Janardan Dwivedi said: “The Disciplinary Committee of the party has suspended Shri Suresh Kalmadi from the membership of the party.”
Earlier in the day, CBI arrested Kalmadi for alleged financial irregularities in preparing for the CWG held in national Capital last year.
Kalmadi was arrested after a day-long questioning by CBI, the fourth since December 2010, in connection with the award of contract for Timing-Scoring-Result (TSR) System for the Games to a Swiss firm for exorbitant rates causing major loss.
Along with Kalmadi, two more officials of CWG OC, Sujit Lal and ASV Prasad have been arrested. Lal was the deputy director general (procurement) and Prasad was the joint director general (sports) in the committee.
Till now, 13 CWG OC officials, including Lalit Bhanot, former secretary general of the committee, and V.K. Verma, who was its director general, have been arrested.
However, Kalmadi, who is the Congress MP from Pune will continue to be the member of Lok Sabha. Speaking on Kalmadi’s fate, another senior Congress leader said: “If he (Kalmadi) comes out clean in the investigation, the party will take him back.”
The Congress has also been giving its views on the impact of its alliance with the DMK following the appearance of Karunanidhi’s daughter Kanimozhi in the CBI chargesheet in 2G spectrum case.