6 disqualified Himachal Congress MLAs to challenge Speaker’s decision in court, call it ‘arbitrary’
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TNR Desk
The six Himachal Pradesh Congress MLAs who were disqualified from the Vidhan Sabha by Speaker Kuldeep Pathania under the anti-defection law intend to challenge the decision in the state High Court and seek a stay order.
Should the relief not be granted by the High Court, they plan to take the matter to the Supreme Court. In the absence of reprieve from the judiciary, re-election would become inevitable within six months on these seats, entailing several legal complexities.
The six disqualified Congress MLAs are Rajendra Rana from Sujanpur, Sudhir Sharma from Dharamshala, Davinder Bhutto from Kutlehar, ID Lakhanpal from Badsar, Ravi Thakur from Lahaul-Spiti and Chaitanya Sharma from Gagret. All six rebel MLAs had cross-voted in the Rajya Sabha elections on February 27.
Calling the Speaker’s decision “arbitrary”, Sudhir affirmed his determination to contest the disqualification in court. The Speaker disqualified them while finding them guilty of violating the party’s whip to vote in favour of the official Congress nominee, Abhishek Manu Singhvi. Instead of voting for Singhvi, the MLAs voted for BJP’s Harsh Mahajan, leading to the latter’s victory. Congress chief whip and cabinet minister Harshvardhan Chauhan had complained about this to Speaker Pathania under the anti-defection law. After hearing arguments from both sides, Pathania had reserved his decision on Wednesday (February 28).
This has triggered an intense infighting in the ruling Congress in Himachal. Amidst discussions about the fall of the government, Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu had called all Congress MLAs to his government residence Oak Over for a breakfast meeting on Thursday morning. Everyone was told to reach there by 9.30 am.
