Himachal Pradesh Vidhan Sabha Speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania on Monday accepted the resignations of three Independent MLAs – Hoshiyar Singh (Dehra), Ashish Sharma (Hamirpur) and K L Thakur (Nalagarh) from the membership of HP Vidhan Sabha.
The MLAs, who were supporting the Congress government headed by Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu before Rajya Sabha election in the state on February 27, had tendered their resignations on March 22, after voting in favour of BJP candidate Harsh Mahajan along with six Congress rebel MLAs leading to defeat of Congress candidate Abhishek Manu Singhvi and surprise win of BJP candidate Harsh Mahajan.
They had joined BJP on March 22 and were insisting on acceptance of resignations by the Speaker, held a protest dharna before his office and even moved the HP High Court in this regard. . The Speaker had also received petitions from Revenue Minister Jagat Singh Negi and Education Minister Rohit Thakur to act against the MLAs under Anti Defection Act as they had joined BJP before acceptance of their resignations.
The MLAs were pressing for early resignations as they wanted by-elections in their constituencies along with the parliament elections; more so since by-polls for six Assemblies were also held along with the parliament elections.
Since their resignations were not accepted by the Speaker, by-elections in three Assembly constituencies represented by them could not be held and announcement of fresh election will take quite some time now.
Vidhan Sabha Speaker said, “Resignations have been accepted and these three MLAs cease to be members of the 14th Vidhan Sabha with immediate effect.; however the decision on petition against the anti-defection will be taken later”, he added .