The six newly elected legislators in the by-elections for Himachal Pradesh Vidhan Sabha were administered oath by Speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania on Wednesday, in an oath taking ceremony at Vidhan Sabha Library Hall, Shimla. .
The MLAs administered oath are Anuradha Rana ( Lahaul –Spiti) , Rakesh Kalia ( (Gagret ), Ranjit Rana ( Sujanpur)and Vivek Sharma ( Kut ehar), elected on Congress tickets and Sudhir Sharma ( Dharamshala) and ID Lakhanpal ( Badsar ) elected on BJP tickets .
Chief Minister Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu, Leader of Opposition Jai Ram Thakur, Deputy Chief Minister Mukesh Agnihotri, Deputy Speaker Vinay Kumar, several Cabinet Ministers among other dignitaries were present on the occasion.
After the by-elections the strength of Congress MLAs has increased to 38 and that of BJP to 27 in Vidhan Sabha .
The by-elections in the six Assembly constituencies were held on disqualification of six Congress rebel MLAs after Rajya Sabha election in the state on February 27, when they had cross voted resulting in defeat of Congress candidate and victory of BJP candidate Harsh Mahajan.
Only two out of six disqualified MLAs ie. Sudhir Sharma and ID Lakhanpal could win their seats while four others lost in the election.
The by-elections for three more Assembly constituencies’ i.e Nalagarh, Dehra and Hamirpur in state are being held on July 10.