BJP Fields All 6 Congress Rebels in Himachal Assembly Bypolls

 New Delhi: The BJP has nominated for the bypolls, the six former Congress Himachal Pradesh MLAs, who had joined the party after they were suspended and disqualified for cross-voting against the Congress Rajya Sabha pick. Other than Himachal Pradesh, the BJP central election committee (CEC) on Tuesday also named its candidates for the Assembly polls in Sikkim and bypolls in other states, including Gujarat, West Bengal and Karnataka.

In Himachal Pradesh, the BJP nominated all six former Congress MLAs — Sudhir Sharma from Dharamshala, Ravi Thakur from Lahaul and Spiti, Rajinder Rana from Sujanpur, Inder Dutt Lakhanpal from Barsar, Chetanya Sharma from Gagret and Devinder Kumar Bhutto from Kutlehar. These MLAs and three Independents had voted in favour of the BJP nominee Harsh Mahajan in the Rajya Sabha polls held in the state on February 27, triggering a crisis for the Congress-led government in the state.

The three independents — Ashish Sharma (Hamirpur constituency), Hoshiyar Singh (Dehra) and K.L. Thakur (Nalagarh) — had submitted their resignations on March 22 and joined the BJP the next day.

The Himachal Pradesh Assembly bypolls will be held on June 1, along with the election to the four Lok Sabha seats in the state — Hamirpur, Shimla, Mandi and Kangra.

With the disqualification of six Congress MLAs, the strength of the ruling party came down from 40 to 34, including the Speaker who can vote only in the case of a tie during a floor test, in the 68-member Assembly. The BJP has 25 members.

Ever since the Rajya Sabha polls, the BJP and the Congress have been trading charges with the ruling party slamming the Opposition for hatching a conspiracy to topple the democratically elected government in the state by using money power and maintaining that the public will not forgive the Congress rebels for their betrayal.

In Gujarat, the BJP's candidates for bypolls to five seats also includes Arjun Modhvadiya, Chatursinh Chavda and Arvind Ladani, who had recently joined the party from the Congress.

The BJP named its candidates for the bypolls to two seats in West Bengal and one seat in Karnataka, besides for nine Assembly seats in Sikkim.

The party has named former minister Narasimha Naik, also known as Raju Gowda, as its candidate for the Shorapur Assembly bypoll in Karnataka, which is to be held on May 7. The party has named Bhaskar Sarkar and Sajal Ghosh for the Bhanawangola Baranagar seats bypolls in West Bengal.

Assembly elections in Sikkim are held simultaneously with the Lok Sabha polls. The BJP recently broke its alliance with the state's ruling Sikkim Krantikari Morcha.