Six Congress MLAs from Himachal Pradesh, who were disqualified after they cross-voted in the Rajya Sabha elections on February 27, on Tuesday moved the Supreme Court challenging the disqualification orders against them.
The MLAs had been disqualified on Thursday by Assembly Speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania, who said that the provisions of the anti-defection law applied to them. Pathania had issued notices to the six legislators a day earlier demanding their response in the matter.
The disqualified MLAs are Rajinder Rana, Sudhir Sharma, Inder Dutt Lakhanpal, Devinder Kumar Bhutoo, Ravi Thakur and Chetanya Sharma.
Their disqualification came amid a political crisis in Himachal Pradesh. The loss of the Congress’ candidate Abhishek Singhvi to the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Harsh Mahajan in the election to a Rajya Sabha seat in the state had triggered tensions within the party.
Before the disqualification of the six MLAs, the Congress had 40 legislators in the 68-member Assembly. While the BJP has 25 seats, the remaining three members are independents.
The Rajya Sabha election resulted in a tie with both candidates securing 34 votes. This indicated that the six Congress MLAs had voted against their party’s candidate. Mahajan was then declared the winner based on a draw of lots, as per the procedure.
The disqualification petition against the six MLAs was filed by the state’s Parliamentary Affairs Minister Harsh Wardhan Chauhan under the anti-defection law.
Senior advocate Satya Pal Jain, representing the six MLAs before the Speaker, had argued that the legislators were only given a copy of the petition and not the other annexures. Jain added that seven days had to be given to the MLAs to file a reply after they receive copies of the petition, and that the anti-defection law did not apply during voting in Rajya Sabha elections.
After the voting on February 27, Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu alleged that the six Congress MLAs had been taken to BJP-ruled Haryana in a convoy of the state’s police and the Central Reserve Police Force, which reports to the Union home ministry.
On the other hand, BJP leader Jairam Thakur told reporters on February 28 that the Congress had lost the mandate to govern the state. He had said that while some Congress MLAs had received notices from the Speaker, “cross-voting is not invalid in Rajya Sabha, as directed by the Election Commission”.
Senior Congress leaders, including Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar, were sent to the hill state on February 28 to address the concerns of party MLAs. The party has set up a six-member coordination committee to address differences within its Himachal Pradesh unit.
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