No salaries or pensions, but Cong-BJP stalemate ends in HP House

Shimla: Even as state government employees and pensioners did not get wages and salaries on Tuesday, the Opposition and ruling Congress came to a compromise to allow the state assembly to function after Leader of Opposition Jairam Thakur was allowed to make his point in the House along with other BJP MLAs.

After continued stalemate and ruckus during the past five days, the House functioned smoothly during the day even as Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu tabled a Bill to debar disqualified members of the House from drawing pensions.

The Bill– Himachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly (allowances and pension of members) Amendment Bill 2024 specifically targets six congress MLAs ,who had defied the party’s whip in the state assembly during the 2024-25 budget and they were disqualified from the House by the Speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania in February.

The MLAs had later joined the BJP and contested the bypoll held simultaneously with the Parliamentary elections on June 1 but only two of them —Sudhir Sharma (Dharamsala) and Inderdutt Lakhanpal (Badsar) – could return to the assembly.

If the House passes the Bill, which is likely because of the Congress’s own strength in the assembly, two first-time elected MLAs — Chetanya Sharma and Divender Bhutto – elected from Gagret and Kutlehar constituencies in Una district will not be able to get their pensions.

Of four others, who are third and four-time MLAs, they will also become ineligible to get their pensions.

The Bill broadly talks about achieving constitutional objectives by protecting the mandate given by the people of the state and also preserving democratic values and also ensuring deterrence towards

constitutional sins.