Defections are betrayal of popular mandate

Mass defections of legislators from parties on a daily basis is rendering electoral mandates meaningless and the Anti-Defection law irrelevant. It all began with seven Rajya Sabha members of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) led by Rajiv Chaddha crossing over to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in April this year. AAP’s pleas to disqualify them were ignored. Defeat of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) in the Assembly polls triggered a torrent of defectors to leave the party and join the Nationalist Citizen Party of India which was barely known in political circles and was legislatively a non-entity too.

The party with origin in Tripura, suddenly rose to life in the Bengal Assembly with the Trinamool Congress’s 58 of the 78 Members of Legislative Assembly joining after mass defection from the party. The defection came just within the first month after being elected in the elections. Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena too has suffered a second split with six of its nine MPs switching sides to the ruling BJP-led combine in the Maharashtra Assembly. Latest from the party crossover front is the news of three former Rajya Sabha TMC MPs resigning and getting reelected to the Rajya Sabha on the BJP ticket.

Reports on huge amounts of money having played a part in luring the Shiv Sena (UBT) leaders are also doing the rounds. There is no gainsaying that most of these legislators have been lured by the promise of power, pelf and privilege or have been intimidated into leaving the party on whose tickets they were elected. Across all these cases, there is no iota of ideological content or genuine differences on issues among legislators leaving the party which enabled their election. Nor is there any expression of commitment to the ideology or programme of the party they are joining. On the face of it, it all appears to be political opportunism of a group of members rather than an act being guided by ideological loyalty.

Looked at from this angle, the defections or mergers are increasingly being seen as a means to cheat the popular mandate and belie popular trust. If allowed a free reign, the mass defections are all likely to erode people’s faith in democracy, issue-based politics and discipline that political parties ought to impart to politics. The 10th schedule of the Constitution added through 52nd Amendment to the Constitution in 1985 had laid down some ground rules for defections, splits and mergers.

But of late, it appears the ruling parties are finding a convenient loophole in the two-thirds rule to engineer mass defections in rival parties. And in doing this, they are being aided by the Speakers—who are basically members of  the ruling parties—who either delay the decision to disqualify the defecting members and allow ample time for defectors to expand their strength or show brazen partisanship in handling of the cases. It is time the defections are looked with a fresh insight as betrayal of popular trust has become the ors’ conscience playing any part.