New Delhi: The Speaker of the Himachal Pradesh Assembly, Kuldeep Singh Pathania, on Thursday, disqualified six Congress MLAs for violating the party whip and abstaining from voting on the Budget in the House. The six MLAs had also cross-voted for the BJP candidate in the recent Rajya Sabha polls. The rebel MLAs said they would challenge the Speaker’s order in the Supreme Court.


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The six MLAs who lost their membership of the House are Sudhir Sharma, Ravi Thakur, Rajinder Rana, Inder Dutt Lakhanpal, Chetanya Sharma and Devinder Kumar Bhutto. They belong to the assembly constituencies of Dharamshala, Lahaul and Spiti, Sujanpur, Barsar, Gagret and Kutlehar, which are now vacant.


The Speaker issued a notification on Thursday evening, stating that the six MLAs were disqualified under the anti-defection law, as they disobeyed the party whip and did not vote for the Budget in the House. The notification said that the six MLAs ceased to be members of the Himachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly with effect from February 29.


Rajinder Rana, one of the disqualified MLAs, told PTI that they would appeal against the Speaker’s order in the Supreme Court. He said that only one of them received the notice on Whatsapp on February 27 night and they were present in the House on February 27 and 28.


The disqualification of the six MLAs has reduced the effective strength of the House from 68 to 62 and the number of Congress MLAs from 40 to 34. This is the first time in the history of Himachal Pradesh that any MLA has been disqualified under the anti-defection law, which aims to prevent defections.


The Speaker announced the disqualification of the six MLAs at a press conference on Thursday. He said that they violated the anti-defection law by voting for the BJP candidate Harsh Mahajan for the lone Rajya Sabha seat and by abstaining from voting on the Budget in the House.


The Parliamentary Affairs Minister Harshwardhan had filed a petition before the Speaker on Tuesday evening, seeking disqualification of the six MLAs for defying the party whip, which required them to be present in the House and vote for the Budget.


The Speaker issued show-cause notices to the MLAs and asked them to appear for hearing at 1.30 pm on Wednesday. The six MLAs had left for Panchkula after the Rajya Sabha polls on Tuesday and came back for the hearing on Wednesday.


The Speaker heard the arguments of both the parties and reserved his judgment on Wednesday. He pronounced it on Thursday. Senior advocate Satya Pal Jain, who represented the six MLAs, argued that they were only given the show-cause notices and not the copies of the petition or the annexures. He also said that they were not given seven days’ time to reply to the notices, as required by the law.


The anti-defection law states that any elected member who voluntarily gives up the membership of a political party or votes or abstains from voting in the House, contrary to the direction of his or her political party, is liable for disqualification. The Congress party had issued a whip to its members to be present in the House and vote for the Budget.


The Speaker said that the six MLAs had signed the attendance register but did not vote for the Budget in the House. He said that he had issued notices to them for defying the whip through Whatsapp and e-mail and asked them to appear for hearing.


The House passed the Finance Bill by voice vote after the Speaker suspended 15 BJP MLAs. The Speaker then adjourned the session sine die.