Congress moves the Gujarat High Court seeking expulsion of Alpesh Thakor as MLA. Details here

Taking a step against its former member, Alpesh Thakor, the Congress party in the state of Gujarat has moved to Gujarat High Court seeking a directive to Assembly Speaker Rajendra Trivedi to take an early decision on its demand to Thakor as an MLA. On Monday. the Gujarat High Court admitted the petition of the state Congress.

In the petition, the Congress also demanded that till the Speaker takes a final call, Thakor must not be allowed to exercise his rights as a legislator. The petition stated that though the Congress, through an application in April, had urged Trivedi to expel Thakor as an MLA, no decision has been taken yet by the speaker, which compelled the party to approach the High Court.

After admitting the petition filed by Congress chief whip in the Assembly Ashwin Kotwal, a division bench of Justices SR Brahmbhatt and AP Thaker issued notices to Trivedi and Thakor and kept further hearing on June 27.

On April 25, Gujarat Congress leaders led by Kotwal had approached Trivedi seeking the expulsion of Thakor as a legislator claiming that he was no longer with the party and that he was involved in "anti-party activities" during the Lok Sabha polls.

Ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, Thakor had resigned on April 10 from all the posts he held in the Congress, claiming he and his Thakor community were insulted and betrayed by the party.

Thakor was a Congress secretary in charge of Bihar and was a member of all key party committees for the Lok Sabha polls. Though Thakor had not mentioned specifically that he was resigning as an MLA or from the primary membership of the party, Kotwal maintained that "resignation from all the posts" also includes primary membership and as an MLA.

Thakor who quit the Congress party is the MLA from Radhanpur quit the party and had said while quitting the party that his Thakor Sena was sidelined and he was betrayed.

"Most of my life I have been doing social work and in politics, my goal was to work for society and my ideology was to elevate my community.  I have dreamt to lighten up the homes of those poor and socially backward, to fulfill those I am constantly working. For me, my Thakor Sena comes first. If I had the greed for a post, I and my Sena would not have joined Congress in their bad time, thus to take this decision is very unfortunate for us."

(with PTI inputs)