Gujarat Congress MLA Brijesh Merja on Friday handed over his resignation to Speaker Rajendra Trivedi ahead of the June 19 Rajya Sabha elections, PTI reported. This came a day after two other Gujarat Congress MLAs – Akshay Patel and Jitu Chaudhary – resigned on Thursday.

“Another Congress MLA has tendered his resignation from the post, and I have accepted it,” Trivedi said, according to ANI. “He is Brijesh Merja, Morbi MLA.”

Before resigning as a legislator, Merja also quit from the primary membership of the Congress. Since March, seven other Congress MLAs have resigned from the Assembly membership.

The Bharatiya Janata Party now has 103 legislators in the 182-member Assembly, while the Congress has 65. The BJP has fielded Abhay Bhardwaj, Ramila Bara and Narhari Amin for the Rajya Sabha polls, while the Congress candidates are senior leaders Shaktisinh Gohil and Bharatsinh Solanki.

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Gujarat: Two Congress MLAs resign ahead of Rajya Sabha polls