In a dramatic turn of events, three Independent legislators who had voted for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate, Harsh Mahajan, during the February 27 Rajya Sabha elections and were camping in Delhi for more than a week along with the six disqualified Congress MLAs, quit the assembly on Friday.

The three MLAs, Hoshiyar Singh from Dehra, Ashish Sharma from Hamirpur and KL Thakur from Nalagarh, submitted their resignation to Vidhan Sabha secretary Yashpal Sharma in Shimla.

“All three of us are joining the BJP. We had supported the Congress earlier but were not getting due respect. Besides, we are facing difficulty for carrying out day-to-day work in our constituencies. So, it’s a conscious decision to join the BJP,” said Hoshiyar Singh, a second-time legislator from Dehra.

He had defeated Rajesh Sharma of the Congress by 4,024 votes in the 2022 assembly elections. Hoshiyar Singh was already an Independent MLA when he joined the BJP just before assembly elections, but was denied the party ticket as it relied on its old war horse and former minister Ramesh Dhawala, who he went on to defeat.

Thakur said, “The Congress government is indulging in vendetta politics. It’s targeting all those who voted for the BJP candidate in the Rajya Sabha election. We followed our conscience, it did not allow us to vote for a candidate who was an outsider (Abhishek Manu Singhvi). The development works in our constituency have come to a standstill.”

Thakur, who had won the Nalagarh seat on a BJP ticket in 2012, said: “I hail from the BJP ideology.” He was denied the party ticket in the 2017 assembly election as the BJP preferred two-time MLA Lakhwinder Rana, who had switched over to the saffron party days before the polls.

When contacted, Ashish Sharma said that he had approached chief minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu on several occasions for development works in Hamirpur assembly constituency but in vain. “Each time I met the chief minister, I only returned with an assurance. Nothing happened on the ground. Interference by ‘extra-constitutional authorities’ made things difficult,” he said.

The three Independent MLAs met leader of opposition and former chief minister Jai Ram Thakur and called on governor Shiv Pratap Shukla at Raj Bhawan.

Later, the three met Speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania.

When contacted, chief minister Sukhu feigned ignorance about the resignations. “Perhaps, they want to contest the elections as BJP candidates,” he said.

With six Congress members disqualified from the House for defying the party whip to vote in favour of the government during the cut motion and budget, the resignation of the three Independent MLAs has now brought down the strength of legislators to 59 in the 68-member House.

The Congress now has 34 members, including the Speaker, while the BJP has 25 MLAs.

By-elections to six assembly constituencies will be held along with the four Lok Sabha seats on June 1.