Clash over past FIR against Cong MLAs in HP Assembly

“This is perhaps the only Assembly in the country where police entered the House premises and lodged an FIR against elected representatives merely for staging a protest,” he said, urging Speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania to give a ruling on the issue.

In February 2021, five Congress MLAs were suspended from the state Assembly for the entire budget session after allegedly manhandling the Governor.

Agnihotri also blamed Jai Ram Thakur for setting “wrong precedents”, including moving a privilege motion against a sitting Chief Minister.

In response, Thakur defended the action taken during his tenure. He claimed the protest had escalated into a serious breach of decorum. He said, “Congress MLAs had virtually ‘attacked’ the Governor who was present along with his family members. He was physically pushed. No law permits such behaviour.”

Agnihotri interjected and said certain legal provisions protect legislators from prosecution for actions within the House.

A senior BJP MLA, Satpal Singh Satti, however, questioned whether such immunity would justify any conduct by legislators. “Does that mean MLAs can do anything inside the House?” he asked, also defending the validity of Rule 74 which allows members to move privilege motions.

The situation was eventually defused after the Speaker intervened, urging members to maintain decorum and focus on the Governor’s address.

However, tensions resurfaced in the post-lunch session when BJP MLA Randhir Sharma raised concerns over governance issues, including the absence of regular appointments to key posts such as Chief Secretary and Director General of Police — both currently holding additional charges.

Randhir also questioned the reported friction between the ruling party leaders and the bureaucracy, and flagged concerns over the FIRs allegedly registered against media persons. He particularly raised the issue of the alleged manhandling with a media person who was covering the movement of the Haryana Congress MLAs, who were recently moved to Kufri from Chandigarh, ahead of the Rajya Sabha election in the state.

He also cited remarks from the Governor’s address, stating that certain portions were “not in line with constitutional values”, and that he could not support it. He also referred to recent statements by ministers, alleging inconsistencies in the government’s claims of “Vavyastha Parivartan”.

Sharma also raised the issue of illegal felling of over 300 trees where the permission was given to cut only 25 trees at Shillai in Sirmour district.

The developments underscore deepening political divisions in the Assembly, with both sides invoking past precedents and present governance challenges to press their case.

In 2021, an FIR was also lodged after the MLAs were suspended. The incident, which occurred during the BJP government led by former chief minister Jai Ram Thakur, involved blocking the Governor’s vehicle, which prompted a resolution for their suspension.

The five MLAs included then LoP Mukesh Agnihotri, Satpal Raizada, Harshwardhan Chauhan, Vinay Kumar and Sundar Singh.