The Congress on Friday suspended MLA Suresh Kumar Routray’s son Manmath Routray from the party for alleged gross violation of discipline.

The action was taken by the Discipline Action Committee chairman of Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee MLA Santosh Singh Saluja after Manmath failed to reply to a show-cause notice served to him on his recent statement in the media.

Though Manmath was a member of Congress, he had been refusing his connection with the party. He told the media that he was independent and had no link with any political party.

“Though you are a PCC member, you have particularly said that you don’t belong to Indian National Congress. You have also said that you are free to visit BJP office and BJD office. You were served a show-cause notice yesterday, but you did not respond to it,” the suspension order stated.

In his reaction, Manmath termed both the show-cause notice and suspension letter “illegal”.

Manmath, who is a trained pilot, said, “First of all, I am not a member of Congress. Despite knowing the fact that I am a service holder, the party added my name illegally without taking my consent. Why should I reply to the show-cause notice? What’s my fault? I am free to make my statement in media.”

He further said, “I have been stating in media that I am a Central Government employee, a pilot in Air India, which was taken over by an MNC. I cannot be part of any political outfit. If my name was proposed to be enrolled in the PCC, the party could have enquired from me. When I am not a member of the party, how could the Action Committee serve me a show-cause notice?”

He said he had resigned from his job around 2.5 months ago. Currently, he is in the no-notice period.

“I will be eligible to take further course of action after getting clearance from my job in September as per the office rules. However, the Congress included my name in its membership list without my permission.”

He said, “Congress is a national party. It should have made proper inquiry before enrolling someone’s name into its register. In fact, I was silent and assessing the party’s maturity and analytics. The party made mistake by including my name. They repeated the mistake by issuing suspension letter. If the history of the party is analysed, only groupism will be found.”

“I had never been a member of the Congress, nor had I ever applied to become member of the party. I do not know whether my father or somebody else had given the proposal.”

When asked about his opinion that mismatches with his father’s statement, he said he owes everything to his father. However, he has decided not to back-track his statement.

In a statement, Manmath had told he would not fight the 2024 elections from his father’s Assembly constituency Jatni on Congress ticket. “I have taken the decision after conducting a survey in Jatni. I will reveal my future course of action in October this year. I may contest the election from any other party,” he told media.

He said his father might not vote for him if he fights the election from any other party.

Earlier, Suresh Routray had announced that he would retire from electoral politics in 2024 and Manmath would fight the Assembly election on a Congress ticket from his constituency.