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The bypolls to six Assembly seats in Himachal Pradesh, fallen vacant following the disqualification of as many Congress MLAs, will be held simultaneously with the Lok Sabha polls on June 1, state’s Chief Electoral Officer Maneesh Garg said Saturday. The counting of votes will be held on June 4.
Himachal Pradesh has four Lok Sabha seats — Hamirpur, Mandi, Shimla, and Kangra. The BJP had won all four in 2019. Later, former chief minister Virbhadra Singh’s wife Pratibha Singh snatched Mandi from the BJP in a bypoll necessitated in 2021 following the death of then incumbent MP Ram Swaroop Sharma.
Now, pitted against a divided Congress — the ruling party in the state — the BJP has already taken a lead by announcing candidates for two of them.
It has retained Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur from Hamirpur, the Lok Sabha seat he has won four times consecutively, starting with a bypoll in 2008. He has already started canvassing in the constituency that has 17 Assembly segments including those represented by Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu (Nadaun) and deputy Chief Minister Mukesh Agnihotri (Haroli).
Incidentally, five of the six Congress MLAs, who rebelled against the party and were later disqualified, were also elected from Assembly segments in Hamirpur. From Shimla, the BJP has again reposed faith in incumbent MP Suresh Kashyap.
Leader of Opposition Jai Ram Thakur said that BJP will soon declare the names for the Mandi and Kangra Lok Sabha seats.
The Congress, which is battling an internal crisis, is yet to announce the names of its candidates for the Lok Sabha seats as well as the six Assembly constituencies of Dharamshala, Sujanpur, Lahaul and Spiti, Barsar, Gagret and Kutlehar. The seats turned vacant after Sudhir Sharma, Rajendera Rana, Ravi Thakur, Devender Bhutto, Indira Datt Lakhanpal and Chaitanaya Sharma were disqualified
under the anti-defection law for defying a party whip to be present in the Vidhan Sabha and vote in favour of the government on cut motion and finance bill (Budget). Prior to that these MLAs had cross-voted in the Rajya Sabha election, following which the BJP candidate won
Following their disqualification, the effective strength of the House decreased from 68 to 62, while that of the ruling Congress shrunk from 40 to 34.
Asked if BJP will give party ticket to the six disqualified MLAs, former chief minister Jai Ram Thakur said that party will take a call on the issue.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear on March 18 a plea filed by the six Congress rebels who have , challenged their disqualification.
As per the cause list of Monday uploaded on the apex court website, the plea would come up for hearing before a bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta.
When the plea was heard by the top court on March 12, the bench had asked the petitioners as to why they have not moved the high court challenging their disqualification. The counsel representing the petitioners had said it was a rare case where the Speaker disqualified these MLAs within 18 hours.
The petitioners have made Assembly Speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania, state Parliamentary Affairs Minister Harsh Vardhan Chauhan and others as respondents in their plea filed in the top court.
The rebel MLAs, in their petition, have alleged violation of the principle of natural justice, claiming they did not get adequate opportunity to respond to the disqualification petition.
Under the anti-defection law, any elected member who gives up the membership of a political party voluntarily or votes or abstains from voting in the House, contrary to any direction issued by his political party, is liable for disqualification.
— With PTI inputs
