Congress MLA Alpesh ThakorA division bench of the Gujarat High Court Monday issued a notice to former Congress MLA Alpesh Thakor and Gujarat Assembly speaker Rajendra Trivedi, seeking an explanation on the matter of non-disqualification of Thakor, despite his resignation from all positions that were held by him as a Congress member.
Ashwin Kotwal, Congress’ chief in the state who has moved the petition in the HC said, “When Alpesh gave his resignation, he had stated in his letter that he will be resigning from all posts held by him as a Congress member. He was elected as an MLA from Radhanpur when he was a Congress member. We notified the Speaker of the same so that Rajendra Trivedi serves him an appropriate notice and thereby disqualify him, but that has not been done yet, despite repeated representations. We have thus moved the Gujarat HC.”
Alpesh, who had quit the party on April 10, just in the middle of the Lok Sabha elections, was party’s secretary and Bihar co-in-charge. Thakor had alleged that he had been “betrayed by the leadership” and hence, he left the party and quit from all the posts, barring his membership of the Assembly.
Thereafter, two weeks later, two Congress MLAs — Ashwin Kotwal and Baldev Thakor who represents Kalol — had submitted a memorandum to the state Assembly Secretary D M Patel seeking disqualification of disgruntled MLA Alpesh Thakor for “indiscipline”.
The letter to the Assembly secretary had stated that Alpesh was elected on the party’s ticket and as he resigned from the party’s primary membership, he ceases to be a Congressman. “Hence, he should be disqualified from the membership of the Assembly as well, and a bypoll be held for his Radhanpur seat,” their memorandum had read.
