Ahmedabad, Apr 14 (PTI) Former Gujarat Congress MLA Pravin Maru, who had resigned as a legislator ahead of the Rajya Sabha polls in 2020, on Thursday joined the ruling BJP at a function held at party headquarter in Gandhinagar.

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After joining the BJP, Maru said if the party allows, he is willing to fight the upcoming Assembly elections, expected to be held in December this year.

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Maru, a Dalit leader, won from Gadhada, a Scheduled Caste-reserved seat of Botad district, on Congress ticket in the 2017 state polls. However, he and seven other Congress MLAs had resigned as legislators in March 2020, immediately after the announcement of Rajya Sabha polls for four seats in Gujarat.

Due to their resignation, former Union minister Bharatsinh Solanki, Congress' another candidate from the state apart from Shaktisinh Gohil, had lost the election.

Solanki would have won had eight MLAs not resigned after the announcement of the Rajya Sabha polls.

Thanks to these resignations, three instead of two BJP candidates - Abhay Bharadwaj, Ramilaben Bara and Narhari Amin - won the elections.

At that time, Maru had claimed that he was resigning because Congress leadership did not listen to the MLAs.

BJP's Atmaram Parmar, whom Maru had defeated in 2017, won the bypoll held in 2020 by defeating Congress candidate Mohan Solanki.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)