Ahmadabad, May 3: An independent MLA from Gujarat's Morva Hadaf seat was reportedly disqualified for submitting an invalid caste certificate for contesting election from the assembly segment reserved only for the ST community.
The Gujarat governor has disqualified Bhupendra Khant as an MLA with effect from May 2.
The governor took the decision after Khant's caste certificate was found to be invalid.
After Mr Khant won the seat in 2017, a petition was filed in the high court by his opponents alleging that his caste certificate, which says he is from ST community, is not valid. Mr Khant had lost the case as the scrutiny committee of tribal development department last year found his caste certificate to be invalid. Mr Khant had claimed that his father belonged to the OBC community, while his mother was a tribal. In his petition, Mr Khant had claimed that the certificate declaring him to be a tribal was valid because he grew up at his grandfather's house after his father abandoned the family long ago.
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