The Gujarat High Court on Monday sent a notice to former Congress MLA Alpesh Thakor after the party sought a directive to Assembly Speaker Rajendra Trivedi for an early decision on the expulsion of Thakor, PTI reported. Thakor quit the party on April 10 after Thakor Kshatriya Sena, the outfit founded by him, decided to withdraw its support to the Congress.

Congress chief whip in the Assembly Ashwin Kotwal had filed the petition on Monday in the High Court. The court will next hear the matter on June 27.

“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,” The Indian Express quoted Kotwal as saying. “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.”

The party demanded that Thakor should not be allowed to exercise his rights as a legislator until the Speaker takes a final decision.

On April 25, leaders of the Congress party in Gujarat had approached Trivedi seeking Thakor’s expulsion, claiming that he was no longer with the party and was involved in “anti-party activities”, PTI reported.

Thakor was Congress’ secretary in charge of Bihar and was a member of party committees for the Lok Sabha polls. He was a prominent leader from other backward classes and was elected from Radhanpur on a Congress ticket in 2017 Assembly polls.

Thakor quit the part alleging that he had been “betrayed by the leadership” and hence resigned from all posts, except his membership of the Assembly.