New Delhi [India], May 10 (ANI): Six former Congress legislators withdrew their petition challenging the Himachal Assembly Speaker's decision from the Supreme Court on Friday.

A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta allowed the legislators to withdraw the plea.

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On February 29, the Speaker disqualified the six Congress MLAs who cross-voted in the Rajya Sabha polls. The six MLAs who had been disqualified were Sudhir Sharma, Rajinder Rana, Davinder K Bhutto, Ravi Thakur, Chaitanya Sharma and Inder Dutt Lakhanpal under the anti-defection law.

Now these six MLAs are contesting the bypolls as BJP candidates.

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After the 2022 Assembly elections, the Congress had 40 MLAs, while the BJP had 25 in the 68-member Himachal assembly. The remaining three seats are held by independents.

These rebel legislators have cross-voted in the Rajya Sabha polls. In the voting of the Rajya Sabha election recently, the BJP, which has just 25 MLAs, managed to secure 9 additional votes.

The vote thus ended in a 34-34 tie, with three Independents and six Congress MLAs cross-voting for the BJP. Harsh Mahajan ended up winning after the result was decided with a draw of lots. (ANI)

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