Amidst the ongoing political unrest in the state, six former MLAs of the Himachal Pradesh Assembly—who were disqualified as Congress members for refusing to obey a party whip—joined the BJP on Saturday.
The following individuals have joined the BJP: Sudhir Sharma, Ravi Thakur, Rajinder Rana, Inder Dutt Lakhanpal, Chetanya Sharma, and Devinder Kumar Bhutto. The Election Commission has announced by-elections for their constituemcies.
All of these were elected as Congress MLAs, but on 29 February they were disqualified for defying a party whip to be present in the House and vote in favour of the Himachal Pradesh government during a cut motion and the budget.
In the presence of former Himachal chief minister Jai Ram Thakur, Union Minister Anurag Thakur, and state unit president Rajeev Bindal, they became members of the BJP.
The three Independent MLAs who submitted their resignations on Friday, namely Ashish Sharma, Hoshiyar Singh, and KL Thakur, are also expected to become quickly affiliated with the BJP.
Accepting the former lawmakers into the party, Thakur stated that their presence will strengthen the BJP even more.
“The Independent MLAs have submitted their resignation and have not cited the reason,” said Himachal Pradesh Vidhan Sabha Speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania.
With the disqualification of the six Congress MLAs, the strength of the ruling party came down from 39 to 33 in the now 62-member assembly. Its original strength is 68. The BJP has 25 members.
