Gandhinagar: Gujarat Congress’s top leader Arjun Modhwadia has resigned from the State assembly and also from the party. He handed over his resignation letter to the State Assembly Speaker Shankarbhai Chaudhary here.

This is a major setback for Congress, perhaps the biggest after the State unit lost Ahmed Patel due to his passing away. The party is shocked by this exit. Arjun Modhwadia who hails from Maher (Other Backward Class) community of coastal Saurashtra, enjoys unmatched weight and experience in the Congress party in Gujarat. He is MLA from Porbandar. He is the former leader of the opposition and former State Congress president. Modhwadia was the face of Congress when Narendra Modi was Chief Minister of Gujarat, as Modhwadia was the Leader of the opposition and State party chief when Narendra Modi was Chief Minister here. Modhwadia was the number one aide of the late Congress leader Ahmed Patel in Gujarat. No party leader including the State Congress chief Shaktisinh Gohil and former State Congress chief Bharatinh Solanki were ready to believe or accept the fact that a leader of such a stature can quit the party. Modhwadia had in January this year openly expressed disagreement with the party’s central leadership over their decision to reject the invitation to attend Ram Janmabhoomi Mandir’s Pran Pratishtha in Ayodhya. Along with Modhwadia his political disciple and State Congress’s Working President Ambrish Der had also expressed displeasure publicly. Der resigned from the party today at around noon. He is going to join BJP the next day.

With his resignation from the State Assembly, the strength of the main opposition Congress party has reduced to 14 from 17 in 2022. Congress’s other MLAs who resigned in recent weeks include CJ Chavda from the Vijapur seat and Chirag Patel from the Khambhat seat. By-polls on these seats and two more seats – Visavdar (where AAP MLA resigned) and Vaghodiya(where independent MLA resigned) are certain to be held with Lok Sabha elections in April/May this year.

Arjun Modhwadia hails from Modhwada, a village near Porbandar. Born on 17 February 1957, his schooling was at the government primary school of the village. He graduated with a mechanical engineering degree from Lukhdhirji Engineering College in Morbi. He became a Senate member of Saurashtra University as a Registered Graduate constituency representative from 1982 to 2002. In 1988, he also joined the university’s executive council. He was an assistant engineer with the Gujarat Maritime Board for ten years. He left his job in 1993 and entered politics. He is married to Hiraben and has a son and a daughter.

He has been associated with Maldevji Odedra Smarak Trust and Dr Viram Godhania Mahila Arts, Commerce, Home Science and Computer Science College since 1988. He has been the president of Gramya Bharati High School, Bayavadar, since 2002 and a trustee of Sorath Kshay Nivaran Samiti, Keshod, an organization working for Tuberculosis patients, since 2004.

Modhwadia joined the Indian National Congress in 1997. In 2002, he contested the assembly election and won. In 2002, he became a member of the Delimitation Commission of India for Gujarat (Parliamentary and Assembly constituencies). He was the Leader of the Opposition of the Gujarat Legislative Assembly from 2004 to 2007 when Narendrabhai Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat.

He was re-elected in 2007 and from 2008 to 2009 he was also the chairman of the media committee and Chief Spokesperson of GPCC. On 2 March 2011, he was appointed as the 27th president of the Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee.  DeshGujarat