The dictionary meaning of defection is clear. But who wants clear things? Everyone loves clouds. In politics, there are clouds of confusion and suspicion. If you dissect ‘defection’, 6 letters of this word support ‘defect’. The biggest defect of this world is that all in politics need not be fair. Because it’s all about war for power, if not the throne, in the modern era. It is one kind of infection for which people need to discover a drug, not leave it to legislators who love to fool them.
Anti-defection became significant in Indian politics immediately after the 1967 general elections, when frequent and opportunistic floor-crossing brought down several state governments. Let us therefore assume that defection remained a blasphemy before this, though we can still extricate one or two legislators who might have jumped the bandwagon hitherto. Even they might have resigned before being ‘defective’. Haryana took the lead in the “Aaya Ram Gaya Ram” culture. Literally, the whole party just changed the banner of the party, resulting in this popular phrase. One MLA here changed his party thrice in a day, a sort of hat-trick cricketers love.
Back in Hyderabad, Mynampally Hanumantha Rao presently with Congress, proved a shade better for changing parties thrice in a day when he was denied a seat by them. He had to use his two hands thrice to touch six feet in one day. The first party BJP rejected, the second INC was reluctant leading him to touch KTR’s feet by evening.
People felt ecstatic when in 1985, Parliament passed the 52nd Constitutional Amendment Act, which introduced the Anti-Defection Law. They felt thrilled that all disloyal elected members get the strictest punishment through this legislation to curb political defections and disqualify legislators who switch parties. That thrill was short-lived when loopholes and exceptions in the law facilitated all parties to unite in taking advantage of them while in power. All parties saw an opportunity in this and found it to be a quid pro quo spinner, ultimately leaving the voters who voted for them as big fools. Those who defect dare to claim that they consulted their supporters, who endorse their defection.
Look at the 10 BRS MLAs who got trapped between claims of belonging to the Congress and at times, the BRS. Since the Speaker is given final authority, he has the facility or rather takes upon himself, the right to remain blind, deaf, and dumb. Sufficient evidence, for instance, is available for the Speaker to disqualify these MLAs and ask them to contest afresh. So, as and when the weather changed, these MLAs stressed that they were in BRS only but when it was sunny, they were romancing with the Congress party, which got confused whether they really aligned with them. Neither were they told to resign and get reflected on the Congress ticket, nor were they asked to leave the BRS. Speakers became party spokespersons literally to the extent of brazen shamelessness in cutting the mike or displaying naked allegiance to the ruling party to which he belongs. This was not confined to only Lok Sabha but also to a good number of assemblies, and neither Congress nor BJP remained an exception. The same pattern was extended to the Rajya Sabha and Legislative councils too. The irony is that courts remained mute spectators under the premise of not trespassing into prohibited areas.
The less said the better about the present Chief Minister, who was caught red-handed in a Rs. 50 lakh cash transfer and sent to jail, leading to bail, of course. The rest is history, giving courage to anyone who can venture into such acts. In fact, the prospective cross-voting ventures might turn out to be lucrative for political entrepreneurs. All this is bound to happen as we framed user-friendly laws amenable to all parties whenever it suited them. One wonders whether brainstorming sessions are held on how to subvert a law with all its loopholes, exceptions, and confusing clauses so that it is a win-win for all politicians to cash in on them while in or even out of power. This is the situation with the present anti- defection SOPs. Why do we have anti-defection rules? Is what people keep asking, of course, without expecting any valid answers, because at the end of the day, all parties unite openly, clandestinely, and shamelessly. We have seen this in the half-hearted approach of all political parties concerning the Women’s Reservation Bill. For public consumption, all parties seem to be on the same page, but indeed, they are when it comes to avoiding its implementation. Every conceivable loophole is used to keep defection in full swing just as not pitching in for women’s reservation.
That is why in Telugu it is often said that laws are made by ‘litigation burralu’, meaning litigant czars who can never be understood by a man on the road who in turn has neither time nor patience to interpret in a conducive manner as he struggles for the well-known roti, kapada aur makaan (RKM) on a daily basis.
Every government at the Centre utilised these anti-defection guidelines to their advantage in overthrowing state governments.
When there is a will, there is a way if people have a say. For instance, tell our legislators to bring in some simple and easy rules to avoid defection from one party to another. The recipient party of the defected legislators may be asked to pay at least five times the election expense borne by the ECI in conducting elections for the said constituency to the Government treasury. A legislator of the X party jumps to the Y party after winning and he should be barred from taking advantage of the loopholes in the anti-defection mechanism.
Let him simply resign, join Y party, and contest again and win on the flag of the party to which he/she defects. The party that accepts him shall bear the entire election expenses with no financial involvement in any aspect for the ECI. To discourage defection at the bud stage, let there be a rule to compensate the voter to exercise his franchise again because of a fresh election as a result of defection. The modalities of compensation should be worked out by the ECI. Not a single rupee of taxpayers’ money should be spent for conducting the elections afresh as a result of defection.
Let each contestant be given a highly sophisticated chip-based identity card by the respective party in such a way that he/she is automatically stopped at the borders, so as not to flee the country. Since a passport is only a travel document, let him not claim that he is not Indian citizen and cannot be stopped at any exit point of the country, be it by road, water or air. Let this party membership card be the citizenship card duly prepared and issued by the government. This will also ensure that citizens are persuaded to play an active role in the polity of the nation without escaping from his/her responsibility.
A foolproof approach to prevent defection will eliminate horse trading. The four pillars of democracy should be interlinked instead of leaving them in silos and criticising each other, leading to a sort of anarchy in a typical fashion of ‘evariki vaare Yamuna there’. When there is a crisis with one pillar, say an assembly where large-scale defections take place, let the other three pillars come on a common platform and decide the fate of the gatecrashers in a concerted manner. We have seen how reluctant courts, including the SC, are to be assertive in these matters. When one pillar is affected, say the media, then the other three pillars viz the parliament, executive, and judiciary, should get together and fix the issues posed by the remaining pillar, the media in this case.
Let parliament amend the anti-defection Act in the ensuing session and ensure deflection of defection once elections are over.
