Mamata will lose support if Tapas Paul not expelled: Amar Singh

RLD leader Amar Singh Saturday said West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will face "grave consequences" and "lose a large portion of her supporter base" if she did not expel Trinamool Congress MP Tapas Paul, who is facing the heat over his rape and violence remarks.

"Mamata will face grave consequences....she will lose a large portion of her supporter base (if she doesn't expel him)," Amar Singh said when asked to comment on the Trinamool's attitude on the issue, which has grabbed international headlines.

"Being a woman...she should have expelled him," the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) leader told media persons on the sidelines of a programme here.

Describing Paul as mentally sick" and a "very bad person", he said only an apology was not enough. "He should be chucked out from the party".

Paul, an MP from Bengal's Krishnanagar, has been caught on tape exhorting his party workers to kill Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) activists even as he himself asserted that he would gun down his rivals and let loose his boys to rape their women.

Notwithstanding the countrywide clamour for Paul's arrest and expulsion from parliament, the Trinamool has sought to end the matter with an apology which he tendered to his party and the media Tuesday.