Himachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly Speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania on Monday accepted the resignation of three independent MLAs.

The MLAs include K L Thakur from Nalagarh Assembly constituency (AC), Hoshiyar Singh Dehra AC and Ashish Sharma Hamirpur AC.

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In a notification issued here on Monday, the speaker accepted the resignations tendered to him under Article 190 (3)(b) of the Constitution of India and Rule-287 of Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in Himachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly by the independently elected members from the membership of 14th Vidhan Sabha.

Consequent to this, the seats of these Assembly constituencies, Dehra, Hamirpur and Nalagarh, have now fallen vacant.

The three MLAs, along with six Congress rebel MLAs, had voted in favour of BJP candidate Harsh Mahajan for the Rajya Sabha elections held on February 27.

The six rebel MLAs were disqualified by the speaker for defying the party whip to be present in the House to vote in favour of the state government during the cut motion and Budget session.

This necessitated bye-elections in the six ACs Dharamshala, Sujanpur, Barsar, Kutlehar, Gagret and Lahaul-Spiti, which were held simultaneously on June 1 along with the LS elections.

The independent MLAs had tendered their resignation on March 22, however, the Speaker did not accept the same.

Close to the footsteps of other six rebel MLAs they too joined BJP on March 23.

Since the Speaker did not accept their resignations they knocked on the doors of Himachal Pradesh High Court seeking the court to issue directions to the Speaker to accept their resignation and also sat on Dharna in the State Legislative Assembly premises.

Now, the three ACs have fallen vacant, pushing the state for another by-election.

The strength of the House has now been brought down to 62 from 68. The Congress has 34, while the BJP has 25 MLAs.