Congress govt in Himachal in trouble as BJP seeks trust vote after Rajya Sabha stunner

In fresh trouble for the Congress government in Himachal Pradesh, Leader of the Opposition met Governor Shiv Pratap Shukla, seeking a trust vote for the Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu-led government in the state Assembly.

High drama unfolded in Himachal Pradesh on Tuesday after BJP pulled off an upset by defeating the Congress’s Abhishek Manu Singhvi in the Rajya Sabha elections because of cross-voting by six of the party’s MLAs. 

BJP called on the Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu government to step down, saying it had “lost the mandate and trust”, the CM dismissed the claim.

The trouble for the government comes at a time when the Assembly’s annual Budget session is going on and ahead of voting on the state Finance Bill in the Assembly.

BJP’s Harsh Mahajan, a former Congress leader, won the election in a draw of slips after both he and Singhvi polled 34 votes each in the 68-member Assembly. Out of the two slips, the one that was drawn carried Singhvi’s name and as per the norms he was “excluded” and Mahajan was declared the winner. 

The Congress has 40 MLAs in the House compared to BJP’s 25 and was counting on the support of three Independent MLAs.

Congress MLAs Rajinder Rana, Sudhir Sharma, Chaitanya Sharma, Inder Dutt Lakhanpal, Davinder Kumar Bhutto, and Ravi Thakur, and Independent legislators Ashish Sharma, K L Thakur, and Hoshyar Singh voted for Mahajan. Sukhu dismissed the upset. “We have not lost the trust. We got 34 votes and they got 34 votes. Six Congress MLAs did cross-voting. They voted against a leading lawyer. Was it a vote of resentment?”