Shimla, March 9, 2024
Nine legislators from Himachal Pradesh, including six Congress rebels who faced disqualification for defying a party whip and three Independents, have arrived at a private resort in Rishikesh in Uttarakhand.
Earlier, they were staying for over a week in a high-end hotel in Panchkula.
All the legislators were taken to the tourist resort Rishikesh in a Haryana’s number plate bus under heavy cover of security.
The ruling Congress had disqualified six MLAs — Rajinder Rana, Sudhir Sharma, Inder Dutt Lakhanpal, Devinder Kumar Bhutoo, Ravi Thakur and Chetanya Sharma — on the ground that they abstained from voting on the Budget, defying the party whip.
The House passed the Finance Bill by voice vote.
A day earlier, Himachal Chief Minister Sukhvinder Sukhu claimed that nine MLAs, who were staying in a hotel in Panchkula, had been shifted to some unknown location in a chartered plane.
He said these MLAs might be regretting the mistake they made to try to topple the Congress government.
The Chief Minister has said that he is not afraid of “conspiracies” being hatched against him. He accused the BJP of attempting to destabilise the elected government.
The six Congress MLAs have approached the Supreme Court against their disqualification by the speaker of the legislative assembly. The six along with three Independents also cross-voted in Rajya Sabha polls.
Filing a plea against the February 29 decision of the Assembly Speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania, the rebel MLAs said the Speaker’s order was ‘illegal and constitutional’.(Agency)
