TNR Desk
With six of his legislators switching to the BJP, the future of the Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu-led Congress government in Himachal Pradesh hangs in the balance, depending on the outcome of the Assembly byelections to the six seats that will be conducted concurrently with the parliamentary polls on June 1 (2024).
The results will be declared on June 4. As the three Independent MLAs have resigned from the Assembly and joined the BJP, it is likely that bypolls to their constituencies will also be held on June 1.
With the Congress strength in the 68-member Assembly reduced to 34 seats, it faces the challenge of winning at least one seat to stave off the collapse of the Sukhu government. Conversely, the BJP, with 25 MLAs, won’t get a majority even if it wins all nine seats and its tally will reach 34. The magic mark in the Himachal Assembly is 35.
The six Congress rebel MLAs who were disqualified by Speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania on February 29 under the anti-defection law as they defied the party whip on remaining present for the passage of budget during the Assembly proceedings are Sudhir Sharma (Dharamshala), Rajinder Rana (Sujanpur), Inder Dutt Lakhanpal (Barsar), Davinder Kumar Bhutto (Kutlehar), Chaitnaya Sharma (Gagret) and Ravi Thakur (Lahaul-Spiti). The three Independents are Ashish Sharma (Hamirpur), Hoshyar Singh (Dehra) and KL Thakur (Nalagarh).
Prior to their disqualification, the six Congress rebels had openly defied the party diktat and caused much embarrassment to the Sukhu regime by cross-voting in favour of BJP candidate Harsh Mahajan, resulting in the defeat of Congress nominee Abhishek Manu Singhvi. Both the Congress and the BJP are gearing up to exert maximum efforts to secure victory in these seats.
