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In a major political shift just ahead of Lok Sabha polls, six Congress rebels, who were disqualified from the Himachal Pradesh Assembly on February 29 for defying the party whip in the House, and the three Independent MLAs, who resigned from the state Assembly on Friday, today joined BJP in the presence of senior BJP leader, Anurag Thakur in Delhi. 

 

The Congress rebels, who joined the BJP, are Rajender Rana (Sujanpur), Sudhir Sharma (Dharamshala), Ravi Thakur (Lahaul-Spiti), Chaitanya Sharma (Gagret), Bhutto (Kutlehr) and Inder Dutt Lakhanpal (Barsar).

 

The three Independents include KL Thakur (Nalagarh), Hoshiar Singh (Dehra) and Ashish Sharma (Hamirpur), State BJP Chief, Dr Rajiv Bindal and Leader of Opposition, Jai Ram Thakur also reached Delhi to be a part of the show, where the Congress rebels and independents joined BJP.

 

“I welcome all these MLAs to the BJP fold,” said Anurag Thakur after the Congress rebels joined the BJP.

 

Their Assembly constituencies have been notified by the Election Commission of India for re-poll and according to sources, the BJP has promised tickets to some of them.

 

The Congress has strength of 34 out of 59 members in the state Assembly as of late, while the BJP has 25. And although the BJP has only cashed in on the rebellion within Congress to the conclusion, the opposition party is now eyeing more such episodes in Congress to disturb the number game, said sources.

 

Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, however, termed it a politics of ‘aaya ram and gaya ram’. He said the people engaging in such politics have betrayed the mandate of the people of Himachal Pradesh.

 

He said they were elected on Congress tickets, opposing BJP, but today they were sitting with the BJP, who mocked the employees for their demand on OPS. “They are sitting with the party, which is involved in the paper leak scam in Himachal, which is opposing the benefits being given to the hill women by the Congress government in HP, and which has crushed the value-based politics of the devbhoomi Himachal with money power,” Sukhu said.

 

“Yet they can win the love and support of people with money in democracy,” he added, holding that the people of Himachal will give them a befitting reply on time.

 

The fast-changing political situation in Himachal Pradesh immediately after cross-voting by these six rebel Congress MLAs in the Rajya Sabha poll, which led to the victory of BJP nominee, former Congress minister, Harsh Mahajan, does not augur well for the Sukhu government.

 

More so, because the Congress rebels had cross-voted and then defied the party whip in the House, as they were critical of the leadership of the Chief Minister and the party high command’s laid-back attitude in addressing their issues within the party in 14 months of Congress rule in HP.

 

Two Congress rebels, Rajender Rana and former minister Sudhir Sharma had claims for cabinet berth or some other position in the government but were left out in the Sukhu government. Both of them owed allegiance to the former six-time CM, the late Virbhadra Singh.

 

In the event of all these political happenings of disqualification and resignations and changing loyalties so early, it is a wait-and-watch situation in the state, which has never seen such high drama earlier.