The BJP neither has the support of people nor confidence in its leaders and therefore, has to buy legislators, Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu alleged on Thursday.
"We have the support of people as well as our workers," the Congress leader added in a social media post in Hindi.
Reacting to the post on X, Leader of Opposition in the state Assembly Jai Ram Thakur termed Mr Sukhu's allegation of the saffron party buying MLAs "baseless" and advised him to introspect on his mistakes.
Mr Thakur claimed that Congress leaders in Himachal Pradesh are scared of contesting the upcoming Lok Sabha election and Assembly bypolls.
Meanwhile, reacting to the news of Congress rebels Sudhir Sharma and Rajinder Rana allegedly receiving a threatening letter, Chief Parliamentary Secretary Sunder Singh dubbed it as "nautanki" (drama) and said the two MLAs are trying to deviate the attention of people as their real face has been exposed.
Six Congress rebels won the Assembly election on party tickets but have now become puppets in the hands of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Mr Singh said in a statement here.
They had hatched a conspiracy to topple the Congress government in the state and stabbed the party in the back by voting for the BJP candidate in the recently-concluded Rajya Sabha polls, he alleged, adding that these MLAs are now feeling shy of showing their faces to people.
Mr Singh said the Congress gave them respect by making them MLAs but they betrayed the party and are receiving threats as people do not forgive such opportunists.
Disqualified Congress MLAs Rana and Sharma received a hand-written one-page threat letter on Tuesday, Rana's son Abhishek Rana said a day later.
"Stop provoking other legislators. If you do not mend your ways, your families will not be safe. Consider this letter as the last warning," the letter written in Hindi read. Both Mr Rana and Mr Sharma received the anonymous letter by post.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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