Kumar on Wednesday. (PTI)

Bangalore, March 3 (PTI): The Congress today expelled former Karnataka chief minister S. Bangarappa and his son Kumar Bangarappa on charges of “anti-party” activities.

The move comes four days after the senior Bangarappa declared he would quit the party to join the BJP and a day after he formally resigned from the Congress. His actor-turned-politician son followed suit and today resigned from the S.M. Krishna ministry and the party.

Describing it as a “stern action” taken on the directive of the party high command, state Congress president B. Janardhan Poojary told reporters it was a “punishment we are giving him for indiscipline”. He accused Bangarappa of being a “party hopper” and an “opportunist”.

The former chief minister had given ample indications of gravitating towards the BJP after calling the Congress a “sinking ship”.

Accusing Bangarappa of having set a record of sorts in switching parties, Poojary asserted that his third exit from the Congress would make no impact on its electoral prospects. “There will be no damage at all,” he said.

The state Congress chief said the party would “expose” Bangarappa and lashed out at the BJP for “embracing” someone whom it had described as the “most corrupt chief minister in the country”.

Poojary said it was “sheer height of arrogance” on Bangarappa’s part to talk of “finishing the Congress” and claimed he would repent his decision to join the BJP. “The BJP has cast a big net and he is caught.”

Asked why the party was taking a belated action as Bangarappa had already quit the Congress, Poojary said the party was “charging” him with indiscipline. “It (the expulsion) is a disciplinary action.”

Poojary said the party had rewarded Bangarappa, made his son a minister and brother-in-law a legislator. Bangarappa, he charged, had always bargained for the “number one position”.

“He has misled his son also,” the Congress leader said.

Poojary added that a case regarding possession of wealth disproportionate to known sources of income was pending against Bangarappa.