The Victorian Liberal Party is facing a fresh crisis, with The Australia Today understanding Western Metropolitan preselection winner Dinesh Gourisetty has been told to resign from the party following fallout over a personal reference he provided for a man convicted of grooming a 15-year-old girl.
The development comes within 24 hours after Gourisetty defeated Moira Deeming in the battle for the top spot on the Liberal ticket for the Western Metropolitan Region, in a result widely seen as a major win for the party’s moderate faction. The Australia Today earlier reported that Gourisetty unseated Deeming in Sunday’s preselection contest, ending her place on the ticket ahead of the 2026 Victorian election.
Now, that victory has been overshadowed by explosive internal fallout. According to information obtained by The Australia Today, the Liberal Party of Australia’s Victorian division has moved against Gourisetty after concerns were raised about his decision to provide a personal reference for Kashyap Patel, a Melbourne man sentenced after pleading guilty to grooming a child under 16, sexual assault and using a carriage service to transmit indecent communication.
However, The Australia Today understands that at the time Mr Gourisetty provided the reference letter, Kashyap Patel pleaded not guilty and told him that he had been framed.
Court details on Patel’s case said he exchanged explicit material with a 15-year-old girl and suggested he could help her work as an escort.
The Australia Today understands Alyson Hannam, State Director of the Liberal Party of Australia (Victoria Division), has asked Gourisetty to resign from the party, dramatically escalating the controversy and throwing the Western Metropolitan ticket into fresh uncertainty.
The move would mark an extraordinary reversal for the Victorian Liberals, who had only just emerged from a bitter preselection contest that exposed deep factional fault lines. Deeming’s defeat had already triggered anger among conservatives and renewed speculation about the party’s direction under its current leadership.
Two separate sources within the party have told The Australia Today that senior figures within the Liberal Party’s administrative committee were aware of the concerns surrounding Dinesh Gourisetty before the Western Metropolitan preselection vote but chose not to act. According to both accounts, the information was known internally before delegates went to the ballot, raising serious questions about the party’s vetting processes and decision-making in the lead-up to the contest.
One source went further, alleging the handling of the situation was politically driven. “They wanted Moira out, and used Dinesh for it,” the source said, suggesting the preselection outcome was influenced by internal factional objectives rather than candidate scrutiny. The claims, if substantiated, are likely to intensify pressure on party leadership
Now at the centre of the storm is not just Gourisetty’s political future, but the Liberal Party’s ability to explain how a newly selected candidate came under such intense scrutiny so soon after winning endorsement from party members.
Neither Gourisetty nor the Victorian Liberal Party has publicly commented on The Australia Today’s exclusive information at the time of publication.
Note: We will update the article once we hear more.
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