Gandhinagar: The main opposition Congress party has suspended Nilesh Kumbhani for six years.

Kumbhani was the Congress party’s candidate for the Surat Lok Sabha seat. However, three proposers who proposed him as a candidate for Surat’s seat in nomination forms backtracked so Kumbhani’s nomination form was rejected. The same happened with Congress’s dummy candidate for this seat. The other candidates withdrew their nominations subsequently. The BJP candidate was eventually declared victorious unopposed. Ever since, Kumbhani has been missing. Speculations are rife that he would join the BJP eventually. As Congress leader Pratap Dudhat has publicly issued a threat to Kumbhani, police bandobast has been deployed at his residence in Surat where his wife stays at present.

As Kumbhani’s proposers were his relatives and friends, the Congress party believes Kumbhani was at fault. Surat is a secure seat of the BJP. The party has won it with over five lakh votes in recent Lok Sabha elections. The BJP has this time won the Surat seat unopposed. While the rest of Gujarat will participate in polling on the 7th of May, the voters of Surat will not need to exercise franchise as they have already got a Lok Sabha MP of BJP without polling. DeshGujarat