Speaker disqualifies 9 rebel Cong MLAs in U'khand

Hours after President's rule was imposed in Uttarakhand, nine rebel Congress MLAs including former chief minister Vijay Bahuguna were on Sunday disqualified from the state assembly by Speaker Govind Singh Kunjwal under the anti-defection law.

The nine MLAs had revolted against their own government headed by Harish Rawat on a day of high drama in the House on March 18.

At a press conference in Dehradun, Kunjwal said the decision to disqualify the legislators under the anti-defection law had been taken on the basis of evidence available against them and after detailed hearing held with their lawyers in response to the notices served to them, a day after trouble erupted in the Assembly.

After expiry of the deadline for submission of their replies to the notices at 5 PM last evening, lawyers of the rebel MLAs were given another hearing on Sunday at their request.

After hearing versions of lawyers of both sides in detail, the MLAs were disqualified this afternoon as members of the state Assembly, Kunjwal said.

The nine Congress MLAs disqualified are: Vijay Bahuguna (Sitarganj), Harak Singh Rawat (Rudraprayag), Amrita Rawat (Ramnagar), Shailarani Rawat (Kedarnath), Pradip Batra (Roorkee), Kunwar Pranav Singh Champion (Khanpur), Subodh Uniyal (Narendranagar), Shailendra Mohan Singhal ( Jaspur) and Umesh Sharma Cow (Raipur).

Their suspension reduces the effective strength of the assembly from 70 to 61. Before this action, Congress had 36 MLAs and support of six legislators of the Progressive Democratic Front. The strength of BJP is 28.         

The rebel MLAs had joined BJP members in the House to demand a division of votes on the appropriation bill that could have posed a threat to the survival of the Harish Rawat government. The demand had been turned down by the Speaker leading to a furore in the House.