BJP fields six Congress rebel MLAs for Himachal by-poll

Shimla: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday gave tickets to all six Congress rebels, who had supported the party in the Rajya Sabha polls, for the June 1 by-poll simultaneous with four Lok Sabha seats.

The candidates are Sudhir Sharma from Dharamsala, Rajinder Rana from Sujanpur, Ravi Thakur from Lahaul-Spiti, Inder Dutt Lakhanpal from Barsar, Chaitanya Sharma from Gagret and Devender Bhutto from Kutlehar.

These seats fell vacant due disqualification of the legislators for defying the party whip while passing of the state budget.

Last week they joined the BJP in the presence of Union Minister Anurag Thakur, former Himachal Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur and its state unit president Rajeev Bindal.

The six disqualified Congress legislators had supported the BJP in the Rajya Sabha election, apart from the three Independent legislators, who too resigned from their assembly membership.

The three are Hoshiyar Singh from Dehra, K.L. Thakur from Nalagarh and Ashish Sharma from Hamirpur.

Their resignation would pave the way for a by-election in three more seats.

However, the Election Commission has only announced by-polls in six constituencies belonging to the Congress.