Shimla: Six seats in the Himachal Pradesh assembly fell vacant following disqualification of Congress MLAs for cross-voting in Rajya Sabha elections. This information has now been uploaded on the assembly's official website on Tuesday.
As per the website, strength of the Himachal Pradesh assembly has been decreased from 68 to 62 members and there are 34 Congress MLAs, 25 BJP MLAs and three independent MLAs while six seats have been declared vacant.
In the 2022 assembly elections, Congress formed the government with full majority after winning 40 seats. BJP got 25 seats and three seats were won by independent candidates.
The magic figure in the Himachal Pradesh assembly is 35 and with six seats remaining vacant, the strength of the assembly has been reduced to 62. Due to which, the majority figure has been reduced to 32 and Congress presently has 34 MLAs as six of its members were disqualified. They are Rajendra Rana, Sudhir Sharma, Chaitanya Sharma, Devendra Kumar Bhutto, Inder Dutt Lakhanpal and Ravi Thakur.
The website has provided a detailed information on the MLAs. It has the MLA's photograph, his/her assembly constituency and personal, educational and political experience. Notably, information related to the six disqualified MLAs has been removed from the website.
On February 27, during elections for a Rajya Sabha seat in Himachal Pradesh, six Congress and three independent MLAs had cross-voted following which, BJP candidate Harsh Mahajan and Congress candidate Abhishek Manu Singhvi got equal number of 34 votes. After which, Harsh Mahajan won by lottery.
Although this seat was supposed to belong to the Congress which runs a majority government with 40 MLAs, six MLAs of the grand old party caused embarrassment for the party. After which, the government registered a complaint with the Assembly Speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania alleging violation of the whip. Finally, Speaker had disqualified the six Congress MLAs.
Read more
