Congress expels 14 legislators from party for six years

Congress party in Gujarat on Wednesday evening expelled 14 rebel legislators, including Shankarsinh Vaghela, who had voted against the Whip issued by party in the Rajya Sabha polls held on Tuesday.

"We have expelled all of them from the party as per our constitution for six years," Manish Doshi, Congress spokesperson said. "We will now initiate proceedings to ensure that they are not able to fight Assembly polls for coming six years."

Other than Vaghela, the expelled legislators include his son Mahendrasinh Vaghela and loyalists as Raghavji Patel, Bholabhai Gohel, Anand Chaudhary, C K Raulji and Dharmendrasinh Jadeja, who had voted against official party candidate. The Sanand legislator Karamshi Patel, who was one of the 44 legislators taken to Bengaluru, was also expelled for indulging in cross-voting during the elections.

The party has also expelled six legislators who had quit Assembly by submitting their resignations to speaker Ramanlal Vora. These include Balwantsinh Rajput, the third candidate of BJP pit against Ahmed Patel, Mansinh Chauhan, Ramsinh Parmar, Chhanbahi Chaudhury, Tejashree ben  as well as P I Patel.

"We had issued the Whip before these six resigned so technically they too have flouted the norms and so we have expelled these six legislators too," Doshi said.