The stage is set for a battle of turncoats in at least two of the six Assembly constituencies in Himachal Pradesh where bypolls are scheduled for June 1 with Congress Friday announcing names of three candidates, including two who switched over to the party from the BJP in the recent past.

As per a list released late in the evening, Congress has fielded Rakesh Kalia from Gagret, Capt Ranjeet Singh Rana from Sujanpur and party general secretary Vivek Sharma from Kutlehar Assembly constituencies.

Kalia and Rana recently joined the Congress after rebelling against the BJP, which has fielded six former Congress legislators from their respective Assembly seats. The seats had fallen vacant after Vidhan Sabha Speaker disqualified the then six Congress legislators for defying party whip to vote in favour of the budget and the cut motion in the House. All six had earlier rebelled against the Congress and voted in favour of BJP nominee Harsh Mahajan in the Rajya Sabha polls, sparking a political crisis in the ruling party.

Rakesh Kalia will take on former Gagret MLA Chaitanya Sharma while Ranjeet Rana has been fielded against former Sujanpur MLA Rajjnder Rana, and Vivek Sharma against former Kutlehar MLA Devinder Bhutto.

Vivek Sharma has been associated with Congress for a long time. His father, Ram Nath Sharma was deputy Speaker of the Vidhan Sabha during the previous Congress regime.

The Congress announced the names a day after Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu met the party senior leaders in Delhi.

Rakesh Kalia had joined the Congress in the presence of the party in-charge Rajeev Shukla in Delhi last week. He had rebelled against the BJP immediately after saffron party named Congress turncoat Chaitanya Sharma as its candidate from Gagret.

Hitting out at the Congress turncoats who are now the BJP candidates, Kalia said, “These six leaders have no ideology. When I was with the Congress before joining the BJP, my supporters and I had cautioned the Congress central leadership not to trust them, especially Chaitanya Sharma. And today, I will say these six leaders will not be honest towards the BJP, which embraced them warmly. The people of Himachal are annoyed by the six turncoats who tried to destabilise an elected government.”

Rakesh Kalia had won the Gagret seat as a Congress candidate in 2012. In 2017, he again contested on a Congress ticket but lost. In 2022 when the Congress denied him the ticket, Kalia joined the BJP. He has remained a vocal critic of Chaitanya Sharma and his father Rakesh Sharma.

Ranjeet Rana, who is considered to be close to Union Minister Anurag Thakur and his father and former CM Prem Kumar Dhumal, joined the Congress on April 23. He had contested 2022 Vidhan Sabha election from Sujanpur and secured 13,000 votes, losing to Congress’ Rajinder Rana who is now BJP candidate.

Ranjeet Rana resigned from BJP to protest against the saffron party inducting Rajinder Rana. Earlier, Ranjeet Rana had announced that he will contest the bypoll as an Independent candidate.