KARACHI: A legislator elected to the National Assembly on a seat reserved for minorities resigned on Thursday, after months of controversy that saw his own party accuse him of being involved in `illegal and anti-state activities.

A National Assembly Secretariat notification, issued on Thursday, announced the resignation of Mohan Manjiani, effective from Dec 31, 2024.

Manjiani was elected to the lower house in an MQM-P ticket after the Feb 8, 2024 elections, but found himself at odds with his party at the very outset of the parliamentary term, in March last year.

MQM-P sources confirmed the development, saying that `the party has already made its viewpoint very clear about the deposed legislator`.At the time, the ECP`s suspende d his membership on his party`s insistence that he had resigned.

However, Manjiani immediately claimed that he had done no such thing and accused the party of `faking` the whole episode.

The controversy began after the MQM-P`s coordination committee reportedly asked Manjiani to resign based `on a report from intelligence agencies`. The party hadclaimed that the resignation was sought on the basis of reports of his involvement in `illegal and anti-state activities`.

`Mohan Manjiani was also noted as being active in the Indian Embassy in Islamabad,` MQM-P said in a statement in March 2024.

The development came just a day after claims surfaced on social media that Manjiani had `bought` the minority seat from the party against a `certain amount of donation`.

However, a dispute had emerged between the two sides and the `deal` couldn`t materialise, which led to the party disowning him before the ECP.

Manjiani described his alleged resignation as being `staged and set up` by the MQM-P. He also claimed that he was no longer in contact with the party, and that the supposed resignation bore his `forged signature`.