Shimla, March 16 As many as 31 Haryana Congress MLAs, who had been staying in Himachal Pradesh since Friday evening, left for Chandigarh from Kasauli in the Solan district on Monday morning, under tight security, to participate in the Rajya Sabha elections.
The Haryana MLAs were seen raising victory signs before boarding three mini buses at a resort in Kasauli as their convoy left for Chandigarh.
Polling for the Rajya Sabha elections in Haryana will be held between 9 am and 4 pm on Monday.
Amid concerns about cross-voting, the Congress had moved its Haryana MLAs to Kufri, a suburb of Shimla, on Friday evening and accommodated them in two resorts there. Thirty-seven rooms were booked for the MLAs.
On Saturday, these MLAs visited Chail for sightseeing. They were then moved to Kasauli, about 60 km from Chandigarh, on Sunday after heavy rain and hail hit Shimla and surrounding areas and were lodged in a hotel.
Only the hotel staff and Congress leaders were allowed inside the hotel, while the media were kept at a distance.
Leader of the Opposition in the Himachal Pradesh Assembly, Jairam Thakur, said that bringing Haryana Congress MLAs to Shimla and "detaining them in a luxury hotel" ahead of the election was an "abduction of democracy".
Thakur said that the mobile phones of these MLAs were switched off. He alleged that they were confined inside a "human chain" and not allowed to step outside, adding that the Congress had lost faith in its own legislators.
Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu has so far refrained from commenting.
Two Rajya Sabha seats will fall vacant in Haryana as BJP members Kiran Choudhry and Ram Chander Jangra are set to complete their terms on April 9.
BJP's Sanjay Bhatia, Congress' Karamvir Singh Boudh, and BJP-backed Independent candidate Satish Nandal are in the fray for those seats, with each candidate requiring 31 votes to make it to the upper house.
The Congress, with 37 members in the Haryana Assembly, has the required strength to help its candidate win a seat. However, the prospects could be in jeopardy in case of cross-voting.
The ruling BJP has 48 MLAs, the Indian National Lok Dal has two MLAs, and three legislators are Independents in the 90-member Assembly.
--
MNK
MNK