Himachal Pradesh Congress crisis: Six rebel MLAs challenge their disqualification in high court

Himachal Pradesh Congress crisis: The six rebel Congress MLAs, who were disqualified from the state Assembly for cross-voting in Rajya Sabha elections challenged the decision in Himachal Pradesh high court on Friday. The cross-voting created a political crisis in the state with the ruling Congress taking some immediate steps to save its government in Himachal Pradesh.

sought the disqualification of MLAs Sudhir Sharma, Ravi Thakur, Rajinder Rana, Inder Dutt Lakhanpal, Chetanya Sharma, and Devinder Kumar Bhutto on the grounds that they defied the party whip and abstained from voting on the cut motion and finance bill in the Assembly.

"Consequent upon this, the seat of assembly constituencies Dharamshala, Lahaul and Spiti, Sujanpur, Barsar, Gagret and Kutlehar have fallen vacant and have occurred in the Fourteenth Vidhan Sabha of HP," a notification from the Himachal Assembly said.

Notably, this is the first time in the history of Himachal Pradesh that its MLAs are disqualified on the grounds of anti-defection. The disqualification of the brings down the strength of the Himachal Assembly from 68 to 62 with 34 MLAs with Congress, 25 with BJP, and 3 independents.

Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu might have waded the immediate threat to his government, but the crisis seemed to be far from over as continued the defiant tone.

While speaking about the future of the Congress government in the state, Pratibha Singh said, "Observer ke bolne se kya hota hai', it is the people who will decide what will happen in the future." He was pointing towards Bhupesh Baghel, DK Shivakumar, and Bhupinder Hooda, who were deputed by the high command to control the crisis.

"Let's see...We have time. We will go and alert them (Sonia Gandhi and