March 18 crucial day for Himachal politics; SC to hear plea of 6 Congress rebels, deadline for 9 BJP MLAs to reply to show-cause notices
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TNR Desk
March 18 (2024) is set to be a crucial day for Himachal Pradesh politics as two important events that could decide the fate of the Congress government and the Vidhan Sabha are scheduled for the day.
The Supreme Court will conduct a crucial hearing on the plea against disqualification of the six rebel Congress MLAs, whose ouster from the Assembly has necessitated the byelections in the state. The Vidhan Sabha Secretariat had issued show-cause notices to nine BJP MLAs over “unruly behaviour” in the Assembly during the recent budget session and they have been told to reply by March 18.
If the Supreme Court annuls the disqualification or upholds it, the political dynamics would get affected in either way. The top court had on Tuesday (March 12, 2024) deferred for Monday the hearing in the case.
The case was heard by a three-judge bench comprising Justice Sanjiv Khanna, Justice Dipankar Dutta and Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra. Justice Khanna asked wondered why the petitioners didn’t move the Himachal Pradesh High Court.
“What’s the fundamental right,” asked Justice Khanna. As the counsel for the petitioners replied “we have been elected”, Justice Khanna said “that’s not a fundamental right”.
Turmoil in Himachal Congress
The disqualified MLAs — Sudhir Sharma (Dharamshala), Rajinder Rana (Sujanpur), Ravi Thakur (Lahaul-Spiti), Inder Dutt Lakhanpal (Barsar), Chaitanya Sharma (Gagret) and Davinder Bhutto (Kutlehar) — were initially putting up in a Panchkula hotel and then relocated to a private hotel at Rishikesh in Uttarakhand. From there, the six have shifted to Gurugram.
The Himachal Pradesh Congress has been embroiled in an internal turmoil following the Rajya Sabha election debacle. The Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu government had to face an embarrassing situation when party’s Rajya Sabha nominee Abhishek Manu Singhvi, a renowned legal luminary, faced defeat despite the Congress having comfortable majority with 40 MLAs in the 68-member Vidhan Sabha.
The BJP had 25 MLAs of its own, but it managed the votes of the six Congress rebels and three Independent MLAs. BJP’s Harsh Mahajan won after a draw of lots as both the candidates were tied at 34 votes each.
‘Unruly’ behaviour by BJP MLAs
The Assembly Secretariat has issued show-cause notices to nine BJP MLAs over alleged unruly behaviour in the Vidhan Sabha during the budget session on February 28. These notices were issued under Article 194 of the Constitution on a complaint filed by Congress MLA Ajay Solanki.
The BJP MLAs named in the notices include Satpal Singh Satti, Inder Singh Gandhi, Vinod Kumar, Hans Raj, Surendra Shourie, Vipin Parmar, Deepraj, Trilok Jamwal and Lokendra Kumar. They have been asked to respond in writing to the notice by March 18, failing which Assembly Speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania reserves the right to take action as per regulations.
Despite efforts to restore order, the BJP MLAs allegedly disrupted proceedings by chanting slogans, causing disturbance and even hurling papers at the Speaker, Solanki mentioned in his complaint to the Assembly Speaker.
