Shimla, March 22 (IANS): Three Independent legislators in Himachal Pradesh supporting the main opposition party BJP on Friday resigned from the Assembly.

They arrived at the Vidhan Sabha here and submitted their resignation to the Secretary. The three are Hoshiyar Singh from Dehra, K.L. Thakur from Nalagarh and Ashish Sharma from Hamirpur.

Their resignation would pave the way for a by-election in three more seats.

Already, the Election Commission has announced bypolls in six constituencies.

The three Independent legislators had supported the BJP in the Rajya Sabha election, besides the six disqualified Congress legislators.

Earlier, the seats -- Dharamsala, Lahaul-Spiti, Sujanpur, Barsar, Gagret and Kutlehar -- fell vacant after the Congress disqualified its sitting MLAs -- Rajinder Rana, Sudhir Sharma, Inder Dutt Lakhanpal, Devinder Kumar Bhutoo, Ravi Thakur, and Chetanya Sharma.

By-elections to six Assembly seats will be held simultaneously with the Lok Sabha polls on June 1.