Six rebel Congress MLAs petition the Supreme Court to challenge their expulsion from the Himachal Assembly
On Tuesday, six dissident Congress MLAs filed a petition with the Supreme Court to contest the Himachal Pradesh Assembly Speaker’s decision to disqualify them. The Speaker’s action is “illegal and constitutional,” according to the dissident MLAs.
The Speaker disqualified these MLAs because they did not attend the Assembly budget hearing.
Following the party’s nominee Abhishek Manu Singhvi’s loss in the Rajya Sabha election, the six dissident MLAs filed a lawsuit against their disqualification from the state assembly with the Himachal Pradesh High Court last week.
The dissident MLAs who had crossed over to vote for the state’s lone seat in the most recent Rajya Sabha elections were dismissed by state Assembly Speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania. They had also refused to vote in favor of the government on the Finance Bill, despite a party whip’s orders, and had not participated in the assembly’s vote on the budget.
The government, headed by Congress, was able to approve the budget after this. 15 BJP MLAs were suspended by Pathania, and the Finance Bill was carried by voice vote.
The opposition MLAs’ disqualification was requested by the governing Congress. Rajinder Rana, Sudhir Sharma, Inder Dutt Lakhanpal, Devinder Kumar Bhutoo, Ravi Thakur, and Chetanya Sharma are the disqualified MLAs.
The anti-defection statute, which aims to prevent defections, has never before resulted in the disqualification of an MLA in the history of Himachal Pradesh. These disqualified members of parliament, who supported BJP nominee Harsh Mahajan in the Rajya Sabha elections, were not in the House while the budget was being voted on.
