Soz was expelled from National Conference for life following his defiance of the party's decision to support the Vajpayee Government during the vote on confidence motion.

The National Conference has also decided to appoint Sharif-ud-din Shariek, its member of Rajya Sabha, as the party spokesman in Delhi, they said. The newly-appointed spokesman later told PTI that Soz's action had caused a lot of resentment in the party ``as the party workers and leaders had mustered support for him during elections putting their lives in peril.''

He said it was Soz's `moral duty' to resign his Parliament seat after he had been expelled.

Referring to Soz'sstatement that he had voted against the BJP-led coalition for Muslims of the country, Shariek said ``in that sense he (Soz) is also communal.''