Himachal Pradesh speaker suspends 15 BJP MLAs, adjourns House

Shimla: Himachal Pradesh Assembly Speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania on Wednesday suspended 15 BJP MLAs, including Leader of Opposition Jai Ram Thakur, and adjourned the House till 12 pm.

The BJP MLAs were suspended for "misbehaving" with marshalls outside Pathania's office on Tuesday and creating disorder in the House.

Apart from Thakur, the suspended MLAs are Vipin Parmar, Vinod Kumar, Hans Raj, Janak Raj, Balbir Verma, Trilok Jamwal, Deep Raj, Surinder Shouri, Puran Thakur, Inder Singh Gandhi, Dilip Thakur, Randhir Sharma, Lokender Kumar, and Ranvir Singh.

"We are apprehensive that Speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania might suspend the BJP MLAs so that the budget can be passed in the Vidhan Sabha," said Thakur.

He said the Rajya Sabha election had made it clear that the Congress government was in minority and demanded the resignation of Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu. Troubles have been mounting for Congress since Tuesday, when it lost the sole Rajya Sabha seat to the BJP with six of its members cross-voting in the poll.

Cross voting in Rajya Sabha

The move comes a day after the BJP on Tuesday won the state's lone Rajya Sabha seat with its candidate Harsh Mahajan defeating Congress stalwart Abhishek Manu Singhvi due to cross-voting by MLAs of the state's ruling Congress party.

Vikramaditya Singh resigns

Amid a fresh scramble for power in the state, Himachal Pradesh Public Works Minister Vikramaditya Singh on Wednesday announced his resignation from the Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu cabinet. "I am submitting my resignation to the chief minister and the governor," he told reporters.

"There have been attempts to humiliate and undermine me from some quarters and in spite of reservations, I supported the government," he said. Vikramaditya Singh said he was "deeply hurt" with the events over the past two days and said there's a need to ponder what went wrong for the Congress.

He said he has apprised Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and party leaders Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Rahul Gandhi about the developments and the ball is now in the party high command's court. "The Congress party had made promises to the people and we owe the responsibility to fulfil those promises and I would decide my future course of action after consulting my supporters," Vikramaditya Singh said.

Singh remembers father Virbhadra Singh

He said that the 2022 assembly election in the state was fought in the name of former chief minister Virbhadra Singh, also his father. "There was no poster, or hoarding or banner which did not carry his picture. There was a full-page ad with his picture in the newspapers a day before voting." But after victory when the matter of his statue came, the government failed to decide the location. "It is not a political but an emotional thing for a son," Vikramaditya Singh said.