Kochi, Mar 20 (IANS): The Kerala High Court on Monday disqualified CPI(M) MLA, A. Raja after it was found that he did not belong to the Scheduled Caste community, for which the Devikulam Assembly constituency in the hilly district of Idukki is reserved.

The case against Raja was filed by D. Kumar, the Congress-led UDF candidate. Kumar who lost to Raja by 7,848 votes in the April 2021 Kerala Assembly elections.

Kumar had alleged that Raja is from a converted Christian community and had submitted fake certificates to make himself eligible to contest for the Assembly seat which is reserved for Scheduled Castes.

Consequent to the verdict, Raja cannot take part in the ongoing Assembly session besides the strength of the ruling Left Democratic Front has come down from 99 to 98 seats in the 140-member Kerala Legislative Assembly.

In most election disqualification cases, the legislator, who gets disqualified, generally files an appeal, and in Raja's case also, this is most likely to happen.

While Raja said he will react after studying the verdict order, Kumar said he was very confident about the verdict as everything was against Raja and "is now happy that the truth has come out".