After getting a defamation notice from former Congress MLA Sudhir Sharma, Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu on Friday dubbed the now-BJP leader as the kingpin of “rebel” leaders. Sukhu alleged that Sharma must have received more than Rs 15 crore for joining the BJP.

Earlier in the day, Sharma had sent a defamation notice to Sukhu asking for a Rs 5-crore compensation over his remarks a day before that the six Congress “rebels” and three independents were “sold” for Rs 15 crore each.

Sharma is one of the Congress “rebel” MLAs who joined the BJP recently. He was a former minister and the BJP’s candidate for the Dharamshala assembly bypolls.

Sukhu also attacked the BJP and Leader of Opposition in the state assembly Jai Ram Thakur saying the party has grabbed power using money, but added that “this would not happen in Himachal Pradesh”.
“The actions of rebels would be exposed in the court of the people who would not let the ‘salable leaders’ become ‘winnable’ in the polls and cases of disproportionate assets would also be opened against them,” Sukhu told media persons.

“The lust for power of former chief minister Jai Ram Thakur has inflated to the extent where he wants to usurp power through notes after losing the battle of votes,” Sukhu said.

Developmental works worth Rs 300-400 crore were done in the constituencies of the rebels and they got their choice of SDMs, BDOs, tehsildars, superintending engineers and SDOs posted but still they “sold themselves”, Sukhu claimed.

Sukhu added that it was wrong that elected representatives “start recovering money spent in elections after winning the polls and later conspire to topple the government if they fail to make money”. He also said that the screening committee of the party would meet in Delhi on Saturday for finalising the names of the candidates for Lok Sabha and assembly bypolls and the Congress’ central election committee would take the final call by the evening.

On Thursday, the chief minister, during a rally in Una district had said that the six Congress rebels and three independents were “sold” for Rs 15 crore each The CM had made the remarks against the nine legislators who had voted in favour of BJP’s nominee, Harsh Mahajan, in the Rajya Sabha polls held on February 27.  The then-MLAs later joined the BJP and the six Congress “rebels” who were disqualified for defying a party whip were given tickets by the BJP from their respective assembly constituencies.