Himachal Pradesh Assembly speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania on February 29 disqualified the six rebel Congress MLAs who cross-voted during the Rajya Sabha elections.
The six legislators who cross-voted, along with three independents, during Rajya Sabha polls have not been disqualified for cross-voting but for violating the whip and skipping the budget session.
The disqualified MLAs are Rajinder Rana, Sudhir Sharma, Inder Lakhanpal, Devinder Kumar, Ravi Thakur, and Chetanya Sharma. The six leaders cease to be members of the Himachal Pradesh Assembly with immediate effect, speaker Pathania was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.
“This order is subject to judicial scrutiny..it will attain finality after judicial scrutiny,” Pathania said. The Congress party had moved Himachal Pradesh Speaker seeking disqualification of the six rebel MLAs.
The petition was filed by Congress MLA and parliamentary affairs Minister Harsh Wardhan Chauhan under anti-defection law. These six MLAs, besides three independents, had cross-voted and helped BJP candidate Harsh Mahajan win a Rajya Sabha seat from the hill state on February 27. Later it also left the Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu-led government on the brink.
Congress is in power in Himachal Pradesh and had 40 MLAs, besides the support of three independent MLAs, in the 68-member house, before the Rajya Sabha polls. But despite the numbers, the Congress candidate Abhishek Manu Singhvi lost the Rajya Sabha seat.The results were tied at 34 votes each. The winner Harsh Mahajan was announced after draw of lots compounding Congress woes in the hill state as the Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu government looks at a possibility of collapse of the Congress government.
The crisis deepened on Wednesday with the resignation of Vikramaditya Singh from the council of ministers in Himachal Pradesh. Later in the day Singh said he was not pressing for the resignation yet.
With the disqualification of six MLAs, the strength of the house is reduced to 62. For now the Congress the number of MLAs with the Congress is 34, which is two more than the majority mark 32.
Earlier on Thursday, Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu has called a 'breakfast meeting' of all Congress MLAs on Thursday in Shimla. "It is an important meeting. Let's see what happens...This is an informal meeting," party MLA Ashish Butail said.
