New Delhi: The Speaker of the Himachal Pradesh Assembly, Kuldeep Singh Pathania, on Thursday, disqualified six Congress MLAs for violating the social gathering whip and abstaining from voting on the Budget within the House. The six MLAs had additionally cross-voted for the BJP candidate within the latest Rajya Sabha polls. The insurgent MLAs mentioned they might problem the Speaker’s order within the Supreme Court.
The six MLAs who misplaced 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 meeting constituencies of Dharamshala, Lahaul and Spiti, Sujanpur, Barsar, Gagret and Kutlehar, which at the moment are vacant.
The Speaker issued a notification on Thursday night, stating that the six MLAs had been disqualified beneath the anti-defection legislation, as they disobeyed the social gathering whip and didn’t vote for the Budget within the House. The notification mentioned that the six MLAs ceased to be members of the Himachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly with impact from February 29.
Rajinder Rana, one of many disqualified MLAs, informed PTI that they might attraction towards the Speaker’s order within the Supreme Court. He mentioned that solely considered one of them acquired the discover on Whatsapp on February 27 evening and so they had been current within the House on February 27 and 28.
The disqualification of the six MLAs has diminished the efficient energy of the House from 68 to 62 and the variety of Congress MLAs from 40 to 34. This is the primary time within the historical past of Himachal Pradesh that any MLA has been disqualified beneath the anti-defection legislation, which goals to stop defections.
The Speaker introduced the disqualification of the six MLAs at a press convention on Thursday. He mentioned that they violated the anti-defection legislation by voting for the BJP candidate Harsh Mahajan for the lone Rajya Sabha seat and by abstaining from voting on the Budget within the House.
The Parliamentary Affairs Minister (*6*) had filed a petition earlier than the Speaker on Tuesday night, looking for disqualification of the six MLAs for defying the social gathering whip, which required them to be current within the House and vote for the Budget.
The Speaker issued show-cause notices to the MLAs and requested them to look for listening to at 1.30 pm on Wednesday. The six MLAs had left for Panchkula after the Rajya Sabha polls on Tuesday and got here again for the listening to on Wednesday.
The Speaker heard the arguments of each the events and reserved his judgment on Wednesday. He pronounced it on Thursday. Senior advocate Satya Pal Jain, who represented the six MLAs, argued that they had been solely given the show-cause notices and never the copies of the petition or the annexures. He additionally mentioned that they weren’t given seven days’ time to answer to the notices, as required by the legislation.
The anti-defection legislation states that any elected member who voluntarily offers up the membership of a political social gathering or votes or abstains from voting within the House, opposite to the course of his or her political social gathering, is accountable for disqualification. The Congress social gathering had issued a whip to its members to be current within the House and vote for the Budget.
The Speaker mentioned that the six MLAs had signed the attendance register however didn’t vote for the Budget within the House. He mentioned that he had issued notices to them for defying the whip by way of Whatsapp and e-mail and requested them to look for listening to.
The House handed the Finance Bill by voice vote after the Speaker suspended 15 BJP MLAs. The Speaker then adjourned the session sine die.
