EC announces schedule for Himachal Assembly byelections in Dehra, Hamirpur, Nalagarh
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DHARAMSHALA: The Election Commission has declared July 10, 2024, as the date for the byelections in Hamirpur, Dehra and Nalagarh Assembly constituencies of Himachal Pradesh. The counting will take place on July 13.
After witnessing byelections to six Assembly constituencies on June 1 (2024), the counting of votes for which is scheduled on June 4, Himachal Pradesh is scheduled to witness bypoll to three more seats as Vidhan Sabha Speaker Kuldeep Pathania on June 3 accepted the resignation of Independent MLAs Hoshyar Singh, Ashish Sharma and KL Thakur.
While Hoshyar Singh is a legislator from Dehra in Kangra district, Ashish represents Hamirpur seat in the Vidhan Sabha and Thakur Nalagarh. The trio had resigned from the Assembly on March 22, a day before they joined the BJP along with six Congress rebels who were disqualified from the Vidhan Sabha for defying a whip on voting on the budget session.
The Election Commission has a six-month window to conduct the byelections and it is expected to announce the process whenever Assembly elections for other states, including Haryana, are announced somewhere in September-October.
After a delay of more than two months, Speaker Pathania has finally accepted the resignation of the Independent MLAs. All three of them along with the six disqualified Congress MLAs had voted for BJP candidate Harsh Mahajan in the February 27 Rajya Sabha election from Himachal, leading to the defeat of ruling Congress nominee Abhishek Manu Singhvi. This had caused much embarrassment to the Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu government.
After the Rajya Sabha election victory, the BJP herded off the nine MLAs to resorts in party-ruled Haryana and Uttarakhand for nearly a month. Before returning home, all the nine formally joined the BJP in New Delhi. While the Election Commission announced bypoll to the six seats alongside the June 1 Lok Sabha elections in Himachal Pradesh, the Independent MLAs, as they had desired, couldn’t seek re-election on the BJP ticket the same day.
By delaying the acceptance of their resignations, Speaker Pathania probably wanted to ward of any immediate threat to the Sukhu government in terms of numbers in the Assembly. The Independent MLAs had even staged a protest for the acceptance of their resignations, but to no avail.
The Speaker, for his part, had put all the three on notice, seeking to know from them whether their resignations were under any pressure of allurement of the BJP. The trio had replied that their resignations were voluntary and duly submitted before the Speaker and the Assembly Secretary. They vehemently denied any external pressure influencing their decision.
The matter even reached Governor Shiv Pratap Shukla, who acknowledged the matter’s gravity but clarified his limited role. He had asserted that instructions regarding resignation acceptance fell within the Speaker’s purview. The three MLAs even approached the Himachal High Court where the case is pending.
