Amid the continuing turmoil in the Congress in Himachal Pradesh, the party on March 6 removed disqualified legislator Sudhir Sharma as secretary of the All India Congress Committee (AICC), even as another disqualified MLA Rajinder Rana quit as working president of the State unit.
The two were among the six Congress legislators disqualified from the Assembly by Speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania last month, after they cross-voted in favour of the BJP in the Rajya Sabha polls on February 27
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An AICC press release said Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge has removed Mr. Sudhir Sharma from his position as AICC secretary with immediate effect. The release was issued by Congress general secretary K.C. Venugopal.
In response to his removal, Mr. Sharma said on ‘X’ that he has been relieved from the post as if the entire burden was on his shoulders.
All the six MLAs – Sudhir Sharma, Rajinder Rana, Inder Dutt Lakhanpal, Devinder Kumar Bhutoo, Ravi Thakur and Chetanya Sharma – approached the Supreme Court on March 5 against their disqualification. The ground for their disqualification was their absence from the Assembly when the State Budget and the Finance Bill were being put to the vote, defying a party whip to vote in favour of the government.
Rana’s grouse
After Mr. Sudhir’s removal, rebel MLA Rajinder Rana tendered his resignation from the post of working president of the Himachal Pradesh Congress Committee. He sent his resignation to Mr. Kharge.
In a social media post, Mr. Rana said that though he kept raising his voice before the State government and the party’s central leadership in Delhi for fulfilment of the promises made by the Congress in the run-up to the 2022 Assembly election, there was no positive outcome, and that he only received humiliation from the party.
‘Unconstitutional tactics’
Meanwhile, Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, addressing a gathering in Hamirpur, said, “I had never imagined that a few MLAs from the [Hamirpur] district would go against the party and hinder the pace of development in the district for which I have been consistently working day and night.” These MLAs not only deceived the government but also the people of the respective constituencies, he said.
Hitting out at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Chief Minister said it was unfortunate that the BJP legislators, who never wanted the Budget to be passed during the Assembly session, resorted to unconstitutional tactics in a bid to overthrow the government. “The people of the State have elected the present government and it will complete its tenure in the service of the people,” he added.
