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Best MLA award winner, party's Dalit face: All about Shailesh Parmar, Congress's ‘interim' in-charge in Gujarat
Though tendering their resignation by owning moral responsibility for electoral defeats is nothing new for party chiefs, as a norm, the post-holders would wait for a word from the top leadership before relinquishing charge.
In what can be seen as departure from the rule, Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) president Shaktisinh Gohil chose to leave the top job in the state party unit on his own on Monday by 'appointing' Shailesh Parmar, the party's Dalit MLA from the reserved Danilimda constituency in Ahmedabad city, as the in-charge of the party 'till the AICC appoints a new president'.
This comes in the backdrop of the Congress's dismal performance in the Kadi and Visavadar bypolls.
Gohil's decision has put Shailesh Parmar, 56, under renewed spotlight. Among the seniormost MLAs in the Gujarat Assembly, Shailesh Parmar has been winning the seat since 2012. Politics runs in the legislator's family as his father, the late Manharbhai (Manubhai) Parmar, was a formidable Dalit leader in Gujarat and a state minister in a previous Congress-run government.
Before Danilimda, Shailesh Parmar also represented Shaher Kotda constituency, which was represented by his father till 1998. Though the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won the seat in 2002, Shailesh Parmar wrested it back in 2007. In the last Assembly elections, Shailesh Parmar defeated the BJP's Naresh Vyas by a margin of over 13,000 votes.
Shailesh Parmar is the party's deputy leader in the Assembly where the Congress's numbers have shrunk to 12.
Shailesh Parmar has completed his Bachelor of Education from Hindi Sahitya Sammelan, Prayag, in Uttar Pradesh. By vocation, he is a farmer who is also involved in construction business.
In the last Gujarat Assembly, Shailesh Parmar won the Best MLA award along with the BJP's Jitu Sukhadia.
Shailesh Parmar had recently accompanied the team that represented Gujarat in the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association meeting held at Sydney in November 2024. Besides Shailesh Parmar, Anirudh Dave from the BJP joined Speaker Shankar Chaudhary as observers.
