The Himachal Pradesh Vidhan Sabha has issued show-cause notices to nine BJP MLAs for allegedly creating a ruckus in the House on February 28. They have been told to file their reply by March 18.

Those who were issued show-cause notices are Satpal Satti, Vinod Kumar, Hans Raj, Surender Shourie, Vipin Parmar, Trilok Jamwal, Inder Singh Gandhi, Lokender Kumar and Deep Raj. The secretariat of the legislative assembly issued the notices to the nine BJP MLAs on the directions of speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania.

Notices were issued on March 13 for breach of privilege and contempt raised by Nahan legislator Ajay Solanki. Congress legislator in the complaint alleged that when the speaker made a ruling under 319 of the Rules on a motion moved by parliamentary affairs and industries minister Harshvardhan Chauhan for suspending 15 BJP MLAs, nine of them under a premeditated design intentionally raised slogans and reached the well of the House. He alleged that nine legislators violated Rule 299 of the Rules and made derogatory remarks against the chair.

The state has been facing political instability after six Congress MLAs and three Independents cross-voted for the BJP in the Rajya Sabha polls on February 27, subsequently pushing the Congress government into a political crisis. The six Congress legislators Sudhir Sharma, Rajender Rana, Ravi Thakur, Inder Dutt Lakhanpal, Chaitanya Sharma, and Devender Bhutto were disqualified from the House under the anti-defection law. The disqualification of six legislators has currently brought down Congress’ strength in the 68-member House from 40 members to 34.