Maharashtra Congress expels ex-MLA Ashish Deshmukh for anti-party comments

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The Maharashtra Congress has expelled former MLA Ashish Deshmukh from the party for six years over his public statements against the party leadership.

The order of expulsion was issued to Deshmukh by senior Congress leader and former chief minister Prithviraj Chavan, chairperson of the state Congress disciplinary committee, through a letter dated May 22.

The letter said the committee discussed Dehmukh's reply submitted on April 9 to a show cause notice issued to him.

'We found the reply regarding your public utterances against the party unsatisfactory. You are expelled from the primary membership of the party for six years with immediate effect,' the letter said.

Deshmukh had said Congress leader Rahul Gandhi should apologise to the Other Backward Class (OBC) community over his "Modi surname" remarks.

He had also accused state Congress president Nana Patole of being hand-in-glove with Chief Minister Eknath Shinde.

Deshmukh is a former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA from Katol in Nagpur who later joined the Congress.

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He was the Congress nominee against BJP leader and now Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis from Nagpur South West seat in the 2019 Assembly polls.

He is the son of former state Congress chief Ranjit Deshmukh.

Last month, Ashish Deshmukh termed as "unfortunate" the show-cause notice issued to him and claimed it was part of a "larger conspiracy" since he had been questioning the style of functioning of the party leaders.

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