The Ineffectiveness of India’s Anti-Defection Law

The Law Doesn’t Address High-Level Political Realignments

Newsreel Asia Insight #132
Feb. 15, 2024

The rationale behind India’s anti-defection law, which deals with an elected member giving up the membership of the political party on whose ticket they were elected to the legislature, is rooted in the desire to enhance political stability and uphold the sanctity of the electoral mandate. However, its impact on the ground is minimal, as illustrated by the recent example of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar abandoning his alliance partners, the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Congress, to form an alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party.

The law specifies defection as the act of any elected member of Parliament or a state legislature abandoning the political party on whose ticket they were elected, or contravening the directives of the party leadership during a vote. If a member of a legislature is deemed to have defected, they can be disqualified from their position. The decision on disqualification is made by the Speaker of the House or the Chairman in the case of the Rajya Sabha.

The law allows a group of elected members to merge with another political party without facing disqualification, provided at least two-thirds of such members are in favour of the merger. This provision was designed to accommodate genuine mergers of political parties without penalising the members involved. And independent members who join a political party after the election are considered to have defected and can be disqualified. Nominated members who join a party within six months of their nomination are exempt from disqualification. However, if they join any political party after six months, they are subject to disqualification under the anti-defection law.

However, despite the law’s intent to curb political opportunism and ensure stability, it inadvertently empowers party leaders while weakening the position of grassroots leaders, as noted by an op-ed published by Scroll.in.

The anti-defection law primarily targets individual legislators who switch parties or disobey party directives, potentially leading to their disqualification. However, the law also contains provisions that allow for broader political manoeuvres, such as the formation or dissolution of alliances and coalitions, without triggering the anti-defection mechanisms. This is because these actions do not necessarily involve individual legislators defecting from their parties but rather represent strategic decisions at the party leadership level, even if they are driven by power incentives.

Kumar’s political manoeuvres often involve the dissolution of existing alliances and the formation of new ones. For example, after the 2015 Bihar Legislative Assembly elections, Kumar’s party, the Janata Dal (United), formed a government in coalition with the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and the Congress. However, in 2017, he dissolved this alliance and formed a new government with the BJP, citing irreconcilable differences with the RJD over corruption charges against its leaders.

By centralising power in the hands of a few top leaders who can navigate the law to their advantage, the anti-defection law inadvertently weakens the influence and autonomy of grassroots leaders, the Scroll.in op-ed argues, explaining that these local leaders, who are closer to the electorate and may have genuine ideological or policy-driven motivations, find themselves constrained by the directives of party heads, limiting their ability to act on their convictions or the interests of their constituents.

This concentration of power also shifts the focus of politics and governance to the whims and strategies of these individuals, it points out. The law, therefore, inadvertently contributes to a political culture where the electorate’s loyalty is more to individual leaders than to party ideologies or platforms.