Senior Congress leader Balvant Manvar quits party

Apparently displeased with the party's choice of candidates for the December Gujarat assembly election, senior Congress leader and former state education minister Balvant Manvar on Monday resigned from the outfit.

"The Congress has lost its culture and tradition and displeased its leaders and workers by selling tickets to rich but weak candidates for the Gujarat assembly elections," Manvar said.

Coverage: Gujarat Elections, 2007

"I, along with other displeased leaders and workers of the Saurashtra region, resigned from the party. We are not going to join any other party now, but we will be campaigning against the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party candidates contesting the assembly polls," he said.

Manvar also wrote a letter to Congress president Sonia Gandhi before calling it quits. In his letter, he alleged that the party's principles have been eroded.

The senior leader served as education minister in the Madhavsinh Solanki government in 1985 and was also elected as an MP from the party in 1989 from the Porbander constituency.