The six rebel Congress MLAs from Himachal Pradesh, who were disqualified after cross-voting in favour of the BJP in the Rajya Sabha elections held earlier this year, on Saturday joined the saffron outfit in the presence of Union Minister Anurag Thakur, former Himachal chief minister Jai Ram Thakur and its state unit president Rajeev Bindal.
After joining the BJP, one of the disqualified MLAs Davinder Kumar Bhutto claimed that the Congress government in Himachal Pradesh will collapse soon. “… We have left Congress and joined the BJP so that we could aid in the development of our state under the leadership of PM Narendra Modi. We do not want any post, we have joined as party workers… Congress ignores its party workers and elected members. The Himachal government will definitely collapse soon…,” he said.
Another rebel leader Rajendra Rana accused his former party of not fulfilling the guarantees it made to the people of the state. “The Congress government is not fulfilling the guarantees it made to the people of Himachal Pradesh. We are answerable to the people, but when they asked us, we had no answer… The CM has become a dictator and humiliates people. There was no one to hear the MLAs. The government is not functioning according to the MLAs, but it is being run by Sukhvinder Sukhu and his aides.
The Himachal government is on the ventilator…” Rana said. The six rebel MLAs who joined the BJP are — Rajinder Singh Rana, Sudhir Sharma, Chaitanya Sharma, Ravi Thakur, Inder Dutt Lakhanpal and Davinder Bhutto. They had cross-voted in the Rajya Sabha election in favour of BJP candidate Harsh Mahajan, who defeated the Congress candidate Abhishek Manu Singhvi in a draw of lots after a tie of 34 votes.
