In the latest development in the Himachal Pradesh political crisis, which the Congress claims to have defused for the time being, Vikramaditya Singh has held a meeting with six Congress MLAs in Panchkula who were disqualified by the Speaker, sources said. Himachal Pradesh Assembly Speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania on Thursday disqualified six Congress MLAs, who had cross-voted in the recent Rajya Sabha polls, for allegedly defying a party whip on voting for the state Budget in the assembly. The disqualified MLAs are Sudhir Sharma, Ravi Thakur, Rajinder Rana, Inder Dutt Lakhanpal, Chetanya Sharma and Devinder Kumar Bhutto.
Amid a fresh scramble for power in the state, Himachal Pradesh Public Works Minister Vikramaditya Singh on Wednesday announced that he is quitting from the Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu cabinet but hours later he said that he will not press for his resignation. However, on Thursday he attended the cabinet meeting after holding a closed-door meeting with Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu along with his mother Pratibha Singh.
Earlier, he had said there have been attempts from some quarters to humiliate and undermine him and, in spite of reservations, he supported the government. Vikramaditya Singh, as he announced his resignation, said he was "deeply hurt" by the transpiring going on over the past two days and said there is a need to ponder what went wrong for the Congress.
However, Congress' central observer DK Shivakumar said Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu has taken responsibility of party leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi's defeat in the Rajya Sabha polls and claimed that all differences have been ironed out after speaking to party MLAs individually.
Addressing a press conference along with another observer Bhupinder Hooda, Shivakumar said the Congress government would last a full term in Himachal when asked if Sukhu would continue as CM.
