Ahmedabad, Jun 13 (PTI) Congress MLA Geniben Thakor on Thursday resigned from the Gujarat assembly after being elected to the Lok Sabha from Banaskantha in the just concluded parliamentary polls.
Thakor handed over her resignation as the MLA from the Vav assembly seat in Banaskantha district to speaker Shankar Chaudhary in his office in Gandhinagar, said an official release.
The speaker accepted her resignation, said the release.
Thakor, a two-time MLA, defeated BJP candidate Rekhaben Chaudhary, who was fighting her first polls, from the Banaskantha Lok Sabha seat by a margin of more than 30,000 votes.
Thakor was the only Congress candidate to win in Gujarat, which has 26 Lok Sabha seats, thus preventing the BJP from scoring a hat-trick of clean sweeps in the state, a stronghold of the saffron outfit. The BJP had won all the 26 Lok Sabha seats in the state in 2014 and 2019 polls.
The Congress leader won from the Vav assembly seat in 2017 and 2022. In 2017, she emerged as a ‘giant killer’ by defeating heavyweight BJP candidate and current speaker Chaudhary, who was then a state minister.
With her resignation as an MLA, the Congress strength in the 182-seat assembly has come down to 12. On the other hand, the ruling BJP has 161 MLAs. There are four legislators of the AAP, one of the Samajwadi Party and two independents.
The Visavadar assembly seat in Junagadh district is currently vacant. It fell vacant in December last year after sitting AAP MLA Bhupendra aka Bhupat Bhayani resigned and joined the BJP.
Since petitions challenging Bhayani’s election are still pending before the Gujarat High Court, bypoll in Visavadar has not been announced by the Election Commission yet. PTI PJT RSY
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