Six Himachal Congress rebels, three Ind ex-MLAs join BJP

Aditi Tandon

New Delhi, March 23

Signs of turmoil in Himachal Pradesh politics continued on Saturday with six disqualified Congress MLAs and three Independents, who supported the saffron candidate in the March 27 Rajya Sabha poll, formally joining the BJP in the national capital.

Will strengthen PM

These joinings are very important for a small state like Himachal. These MLAs have taken a huge step and sacrificed House membership to strengthen PM Modi. Jai Ram Thakur, former CM

While the switch by disqualified Congress lawmakers —Sudhir Sharma (Dharamsala), Rajinder Rana (Sujanpur), Ravi Thakur (Lahaul-Spiti), ID Lakhanpal (Badsar), Davinder Bhutto (Kutlehar) and Chaitanya Sharma (Gagret) — was expected, the induction of Independents appears aimed at deeper saffron designs aimed at preventing them from going the Congress way and boosting Congress bench strength. Independent MLAs Hoshyar Singh (Dehra), KL Thakur (Nalagarh) and Ashish Sharma (Hamirpur) had submitted their resignations to Vidhan Sabha Speaker Kuldeep Pathania, urging him to notify vacancies in their segments and enable bypolls.

On March 16, the Election Commission notified bypoll for the six Assembly segments of Himachal as the sitting Congress MLAs had been disqualified by their party.

These six MLAs today decided to join the BJP and contest the byelections on saffron nominations after the Supreme Court refused to stay their disqualification.

The BJP will be able to turn the tables on the Congress, if all nine seats go to the polls and are won by its nominees. “That will take our number in the Assembly to 34, prompting other Congress MLAs to mull their future,” said a source in the BJP.

The induction of Independents seeks to build pressure on the Speaker to accept their resignations to pave the way for byelections, something the Speaker might not be inclined to do. “If the Speaker does not act, the legal route is open,” senior BJP Himachal leaders said.

The induction ceremony was held in the presence of Union minister Anurag Thakur, former Himachal CM Jairam Thakur, state BJP chief Rajeev Bindal and BJP general secretary Arun Singh. Four-term Congress MLA Sudhir Sharma said, “This situation has arisen due to the lack of conducive environment to work in the state and constant undermining of the elected MLAs’ self-respect.”