Poppy: 'My membership of Shilpi Somity was terminated'

Dhallywood actor Sadika Parveen Poppy has received a letter terminating her membership of the film artists' association and claimed that she has repeatedly been humiliated.

Poppy, who has not been active in the media for quite some time, on Wednesday evening made a video statement on social media. 

She said, "I thought I would never come in front of the camera again. But as an artist I have responsibilities. I have received the National Film Award three times and worked with a reputation for over 26 years in the industry."

She said she had been repeatedly humiliated by a member of the current artist association through its politics and its many forms of non-cooperation. Riaz, Ferdous, Purnima and Nipun have also been humiliated, she said.

She also said how humiliating it was for her to receive the letter of membership terminating her membership of the artists' association (Shilpi Somity) after working for so many years.

So, she urged the members of the association not to make the mistake they did and to choose the right candidate through election.

One of the most salient issues, and almost ideological points of difference between the two competing panels in this year's election is the membership in the association of 184 persons who, like Poppy, were degraded from full to associate membership - among other things, depriving them of voting rights in association matters under the current Misha-Zayed panel. 

This was supposed to have been done after scrutiny through a vetting process to weed out those whose body of work did not measure up to merit membership of the association. The names of various artists with substantial credits in plenty of Dhallywood movies appearing on the list of 184 suggested this was not always followed. 

Now the revelation that Poppy is among them, plus the context she narrated may come as a blow to the incumbents when votes are cast this Friday (28 January). Allegations persisted throughout the campaign period that the membership vetting process had also been used to carry out vendettas, political and otherwise, by the Misha-Zayed panel.