India has stepped into a dubious era of “mass defections”. In fact, anti-defection law makes it mandatory that for the defections to be legally valid these have to be “two-thirds” of the total number of legislators. That in a way, means, defections can be legal only if these are on a “mass” scale.
It looks like a pandemic of “mass defections”, where the smaller and vulnerable parties are finding it difficult to retain their flock in the face of irresistible temptations of power and maybe much more.
So far, in recent months, the country has seen two major mass defections, starting with seven Rajya Sabha MPs of the Aam Aadmi Party defecting to the Bharatiya Janata Party.
This was followed by two-third MLAs of the Trinamool Congress rebelling and forming a separate group. Again two-third of its Lok Sabha MPs defected and joined, so far, an unknown political party the Nationalist Citizen Party of India.
While these defections were still fresh in the minds of people, there are reports of yet another mass defection of cadres from the Shiv Sena-Uddhav Bal Thackeray, reportedly planning to join the rival faction, the Shiv Sena-Shinde.
Unconfirmed reports suggest that a substantial number of the Samajwadi Party cadres in Uttar Pradesh is also planning to leave the party. The SP has, however, denied such reports, terming these baseless. But nothing can be ruled out in politics, particularly in modern day India.
In Tamil Nadu, a majority of the AIADMK MLAs are continuously defecting to the ruling TVK.
These mass defections are obviously taking place from smaller parties, controlled by a single family or a single person. The BJP undoubtedly may be encouraging such defections as it stands benefitted the most, but it can only be possible if the MPs feel alienated with their own leadership.
During the government of Rajiv Gandhi, the Tenth Schedule was incorporated into the Constitution, which is famously called the anti-defection law. The law mandated that a legislator, whether an MP or an MLA will automatically stand disqualified if s/he votes against the party s/he has been elected from.
There was, however, an exemption that in case it was a split in the party and those voting or going against the party whip or party line constituted one-third of the total number of the members, they would not invite disqualification. That meant if one-third of the members revolted, they could not be disqualified.
Since this exemption turned into a major loophole and was extensively misused by rival political parties, the law was amended in 2003 to plug in the loophole, through 91st Constitutional Amendment Act. One-third exemption was removed. The only valid exemption retained was the merger of the party, in case at least two-thirds of the members agree to merge the party into some other party.
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The only purpose now the law serves, even after the 91st Constitutional Amendment, is it prevents party hopping by individual or a small group of legislators. But it has not addressed the malaise of defections that continues to go on. It is unlikely to stop, unless the law makes it clear and categorical that any legislator(s) will have to surrender his/ their membership of the assembly or the parliament, in case they decide to join another party, no matter what number they constitute, even if it is more than the two-thirds of the total strength.
Besides, there can be another provision as well that there must be a mandatory “cooling off” period of at least two years for the legislators before they can join a new party after resigning from the party they belonged to.
The opposition parties, particularly the affected ones like the TMC and the SS-UBT are crying wolf that it is the “murder of democracy” and “clear theft of the mandate”. But as long as it is being done within the permissible constitutional mandate, the parties can do little more than crying foul.
It is not that the defectors are always welcome. The fact that 20 TMC MPs were made to join an unknown political party and not the BJP, speaks for itself. There is a strong resistance and resentment from the traditional and loyal cadres and rank and file against allowing the outsiders to join the party and that too when it has come to power.
But the compulsions of realpolitik are too strong to have any space or scope for moral positioning. The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance is feeling handicapped for lack of two-thirds majority in the parliament. It could not pass the Women Reservation and Delimitation Bill in the last session of the parliament, as it needed constitutional amendment, which could not be done for lack of numbers.
With members of parliament from the opposition parties running in droves to join the saffron brigade of the NDA, the government may overcome the handicaps it has faced so far.
This pandemic of mass defections also reflects poorly on the ability of the opposition INDIA bloc to retain its people. The INDIA bloc leaders, so far, were taunting and jibing the BJP, Prime Minister Narendra Modi in particular, that they had defeated their designs to “dismantle” the constitution, by preventing them from winning “400+” seats.
But, the way defections are taking place on such a mass scale, the day may not be far, when the NDA will actually touch the figure of “400 paar” (400+). In any case, the NDA is closing in on the two-thirds figure, which comes to around 360, that will enable it to enact any law even if it requires a constitutional amendment.
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