New Delhi: Six former Congress MLAs of the Himachal Pradesh Assembly who were disqualified after they defied a party whip and cross-voted in the Rajya Sabha polls, were joined by three independent MLAs in joining the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) today.
The exodus from the Congress to the BJP was formalised in a ceremony attended by prominent BJP figures including Union Minister Anurag Thakur, former Himachal Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur, and the state unit president Rajeev Bindal. Mr Thakur, while welcoming these former Congress legislators into the BJP fold, criticised the incumbent Congress government in the state by alleging its failure to fulfil electoral promises.
The six disqualified Congress MLAs who switched allegiance to the BJP are Sudhir Sharma, Ravi Thakur, Rajinder Rana, Inder Dutt Lakhanpal, Chetanya Sharma, and Devinder Kumar Bhutto. Elected on a Congress ticket, they were disqualified on February 29 for refusing to follow party directives. Their actions, which included abstaining from voting in favour of the state government during a decisive motion in the Himachal Pradesh Assembly, led to their expulsion from the Congress.
The three independent MLAs who joined the BJP are Ashish Sharma, Hoshiyar Singh, and KL Thakur.