Eleven MLAs of Himachal Pradesh, including six Congress MLAs who cross-voted in last week’s Rajya Sabha polls, have shifted to a hotel in Rishikesh in BJP-ruled Uttarakhand.

Three Independents and two BJP MLAs are also part of the group.

The Uttarakhand Congress Committee has asked the Pushkar Singh Dhami government to reveal who was funding their trip.

The BJP candidate Harsh Mahajan won Himachal’s lone seat in the Rajya Sabha after six rebel MLAs from Congress voted for him instead of the party’s official nominee Abhishek Manu Singhvi. Mahajan and Singhvi had got 34 votes each but the Election Commission declared the BJP nominee winner through a draw of lots.

Later, acting on a complaint by the Congress, Himachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly Speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania disqualified the six rebel MLAs from the House on February 29, two days after the election, for defying a party whip to vote on the state budget. The MLAs had moved the Supreme Court on March 5 against the Speaker’s decision and the case has been posted for March 11.

“The 11 MLAs alighted at Jolly Grant Airport in Dehradun on Friday evening and headed to Rishikesh in a bus,” said a source in Uttarakhand BJP.

The source said: “They are waiting there in a hotel in the Singtali area, about 30km away from the main town area, for the next instruction.”

The disqualified Congress MLAs include Rajinder Rana, Sudhir Sharma, Inder Dutt Lakhanpal, Ravi Thakur, Devinder Kumar Bhutoo and Chetanya Sharma. The independent MLAs who are accompanying them have been identified as Hoshiyar Singh, K.L. Thakur and Ashish Sharma.

Sources said Vikram Thakur and Trilok Jamwal of the BJP were also seen there at the airport and in the bus with the other nine.

The strength of Himachal’s Assembly is 68 but now it’s 62 after the disqualification of the six MLAs. The Congress had 40 MLAs which was reduced to 34. The BJP has 25 MLAs.

Mahajan claimed that they were in a position to push the government in the minority and form the BJP government.