TNR Desk
Though the six disqualified Himachal Pradesh Congress MLAs have joined the BJP and the saffron party has even fielded them from their respective seats in the June 1 Assembly byelections, the Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu government appears adamant on getting to the root of the conspiracy to topple the ruling regime in the hill state.
The Himachal Pradesh Police have been investigating as to who paid the bills worth crores of rupees incurred on the stay in five-star hotels of the six Congress rebels after they cross-voted in favour of the BJP candidate in the February 27 Rajya Sabha election. The cross-voting cost the ruling Congress dear as despite having a majority with 40 MLAs in the 68-member Vidhan Sabha, its candidate Abhishek Manu Singhvi lost to Harsh Mahajan of the BJP, which had 25 MLAs.
Along with the six Congress rebels, three Independent MLAs and two BJP legislators too were putting up at the luxury hotels for nearly a month, first in Panchkula, then Rishikesh and finally in Gurugram. All these places fall in BJP-ruled Haryana and Uttarakhand. The initial bill of the stay of the Congress rebels in Panchkula was worth several lakhs of rupees.
Following a complaint of alleged horse-trading to topple the Sukhu government, two Congress MLAs had lodged an FIR against Independent MLA from Hamirpur Ashish Sharma and disqualified Congress MLA from Gagret Chaitanya Sharma’s father Rakesh Sharma, who is the former Chief Secretary of Uttarakhand.
