Shimla, Jun 10 — The Election Commission announced on Monday that bypolls for three assembly seats in Himachal Pradesh, vacated by Independent lawmakers who joined the BJP, will be held on July 10.
The three Independent MLAs — Ashish Sharma (Hamirpur), Hoshiyar Singh (Dehra), and KL Thakur (Nalagarh) — resigned from the assembly on March 22 and joined the BJP the next day. Their resignations were accepted by the speaker on June 3.
Speculation is rife that the BJP may field these three as its candidates from their respective seats.
Sharma, Singh, and Thakur were among the nine MLAs, including six from the Congress, who voted for BJP candidate Harsh Mahajan in the February 27 Rajya Sabha elections. The six Congress MLAs were disqualified from the assembly for defying a party whip to vote in favor of the government. They later joined the BJP and were fielded as BJP candidates in the bypolls for their respective constituencies.
In the bypolls held simultaneously with the Lok Sabha elections, the Congress retained four seats while the BJP won two. Currently, the 68-member House is functioning with 65 MLAs. The ruling Congress has 38 MLAs, while the BJP has 27.
According to the Election Commission’s schedule, the notification for the bypolls will be issued on June 14, and the last date for filing nominations will be June 21. The papers will be scrutinized on June 24, and the last date for withdrawing nominations is June 26. Votes will be counted on July 13.
Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu commented that the Independent MLAs could have supported any party in the House without resigning. “They were elected for five years but resigned within 14 months. The people of the state will decide their fate,” he said.
In related news, the Congress has dissolved its Hamirpur block unit and plans to reconstitute it soon.
