The Congress party on Friday announced its candidates for by-elections in three Assembly constituencies in Himachal Pradesh.
They have fielded Capt Ranjit Singh Rana (Retd) from Sujanpur, Rakesh Kalia from Gagret and Vivek Sharma from Kuthlehar.
The by-polls in six Assembly constituencies in the state are scheduled to be held on June 1 along with the Lok Sabha elections.
These ACs had fallen vacant after six disqualified rebel Congress MLAs joined BJP and were fielded to contest the bye-election by the party.
A close aide of former Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal, former BJP leader Ranjit Singh Rana had joined Congress a two-days ago on Wednesday.
He had contested Sajanpur AC elections in 2022 on BJP ticket. However, he lost to Rajinder Rana who contested on Congress ticket, by a narrow margin of 399 votes.
After Rajinder Rana joined the BJP and was given the party ticket to contest from Sujanpur, disgruntled Ranjit Singh Rana quit the BJP and joined the Congress.
Three-time MLA Rakesh Kalia had re-joined the Congress after a gap of 18 months on April 18. He had left the BJP when the party allotted a ticket to one of the Congress rebels, Chitaniya Sharma.
Vivek Sharma will contest from Kuthlehar. His name had been announced by Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu as the front runner to contest the by-elections from Kutlehar earlier this month.
After the six disqualified rebel MLAs Rajinder Rana (Sujanpur), Sudhir Sharma (Dharamshala), Ravi Thakur (Lahaul-Spiti), Inder Dutt Lakhanpal (Barsar), Devinder Kumar Bhutto (Kutlehar) and Chaitanya Sharma (Gagret) joined BJP, all of them were given ticket by saffron party to contest elections.
These MLAs had cross-voted during the Rajya Sabha elections on February 27 for the state’s lone seat, in favour of BJP candidate Harsh Mahajan, rendering a shocking defeat to Congress candidate Abhishek Manu Sanghvi, despite the Congress being in majority with 40 members. There were 25 BJP members and three independent MLAs.
After cross-voting, these rebel MLAs were disqualified under the provisions of anti-defection law by the State Assembly Speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania on February 29, 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.