The Himachal Pradesh unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Sunday condemned the failure to accept the resignations of three Independent legislators from the Vidhan Sabha as “unconstitutional and illegal”.
BJP state media in-charge and MLA Randhir Sharma, in a press conference, emphasized the violation of constitutional provisions. “Not accepting the resignation of the Independent MLAs is unconstitutional and illegal because when an MLA appears in person and resigns, his resignation must be accepted as per the constitutional provision,” he said.
The three Independent MLAs — Hoshiyar Singh from Dehra, Ashish Sharma from Hamirpur, and KL Thakur from Nalagarh — who had voted for the BJP candidate Harsh Mahajan in the recently-concluded Rajya Sabha election in the hill state had tendered their resignation from the state assembly on March 22, and joined the BJP the next day.
However, the Vidhan Sabha had sought an explanation from these MLAs till April 10 following a representation by the Congress legislative party that these MLAs resigned allegedly under duress and not voluntarily.
The three legislators had on Saturday staged a protest at the Vidhan Sabha campus insisting that they had resigned willfully as they were being “humiliated and insulted”.
Sharma claimed that the Congress has become “dejected and demoralized” as defeat stares at its face in the Lok Sabha elections and assembly by-polls, and is therefore delaying the elections. “The Congress also knows that the BJP will win all the six seats in the upcoming by-elections too and if these three Independent MLAs join the BJP and win the elections, the Congress Government will cease to exist in the state,” said Sharma.
After the disqualification of six Congress rebels, the strength of the ruling party in the State has been reduced to 34 from 40, and the BJP is keen that the by-polls be held for all the nine assembly constituencies. But, so far, the Election Commission has issued the schedule for by-polls to only six constituencies vacated following the disqualification of Congress rebels.
Randhir said that now such a situation has arisen that the three independent MLAs have to stage a protest in order to get their resignation accepted.
Notably, three Independent MLAs sat on a day-long protest outside the assembly premises in Shimla on Saturday, demanding that the Speaker accept their resignations., which they have submitted on March 22.
All three MLAs held the placards outside the assembly’s library, which read, “We have given our resignation from the membership of the Assembly voluntarily, without any pressure, in person to the Speaker of the Assembly. Please accept our resignation as soon as possible.”
Hamirpur MLA Sharma had said that they are now planning to move the court, while Nalagarh MLA Thakur had said that they'll either go to the High Court or the Supreme Court. “We submitted our resignation on March 22 and it has not been accepted, so far. We had given our resignation to the Speaker by email as well and we want them to accept it as soon as possible. We shall approach the court; if our resignations are not accepted, we shall move the court,” he added.
Dehra MLA Singh, who declared that they have decided to contest elections on BJP’s ticket, said that this was the first time we were protesting to accept our resignation.
