Himachal Assembly bye-election: BJP fields all six former Congress MLAs who cross-voted in its favour in RS poll

Even as the Congress is yet to decide on its candidates for the parliamentary polls, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has taken the lead in announcing its candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha election as well as the bye-elections for the Himachal Pradesh Assembly.

All the six former Congress legislators, who cross-voted in favour of the BJP in the Rajya Sabha poll on February 27, were on Tuesday declared as BJP candidates for the Assembly bye-election.

In Himachal Pradesh, the four Lok Sabha seats will go for polling on June 1, and on the same day, the bye-elections for six Assembly constituencies that fell vacant after the disqualification of six Congress legislators from the Assembly will also be held.

The six rebel Congress MLAs who joined the BJP last week are Rajinder Rana, Sudhir Sharma, Inder Dutt Lakhanpal, Ravi Thakur, Chaitanya Sharma and Davinder Bhutto. They have now been named BJP candidates from Sujanpur, Dharamshala, Barsar, Lahaul-Spiti, Gagret, and Kutlehar Assembly constituencies respectively. They were all elected as Congress MLAs from these respective constituencies in the 2022 Assembly election.

The ground for the disqualificationof the Congress MLAs was their absence from the Assembly when the State Budget and the Finance Bill were being put to vote, defying a party whip to vote in favour of the government. The three Independents had also voted in favour of the BJP and joined the party as well.

Apart from the Assembly bye-elections, the BJP has announced its candidates for all four parliamentary constituencies — actress Kangana Ranaut from Mandi, the party’s State vice-president Rajeev Bhardwaj from Kangra, MPs Anurag Thakur from Hamirpur and Suresh Kashyap from Shimla. The Congress, on the other hand, is yet to declare its candidates for the parliamentary polls and Assembly bye-elections