Defections Will Not Only Impact The Opposition But Also The Ruling Party
· Free Press Journal
Defections over just the past few months have raised crucial questions about the future of Indian democracy, crippling the parliamentary and state legislative wings of at least three political parties—the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and, most recently, the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena. The ruling BJP, backed by the enormous wealth and power of the Central government, is widely believed to have both sponsored the defections and politically benefitted from them, and Opposition parties, anti-establishment groups and commentators are up in arms against what they see as the former crossing red lines that have turned representative democracy in the country into a farce.
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However, there is good reason to believe the current predicament facing the democratic process has its roots in the steady corrosion, dating from well before the present regime came to power, of the party system so fundamental to our electoral democracy. If parties start collapsing, if leaders are unable to retain their flock, if self-seeking members are ready to cross the floor for whatever reason—money, threats from investigative agencies or power—it shamelessly debases the popular mandate that elected them. This malady, even though fast-tracked by the focused efforts of the BJP juggernaut, began several decades ago, and the already ugly underbelly of India's much-vaunted democracy has made the task of its present masters that much easier. It is, therefore, important to examine the historical backdrop to today's crisis.
History Of Political Defections
As a matter of fact, public controversy over political defections stretches back well beyond half a century. The phrase 'Aya Ram Gaya Ram', deriding defectors, was coined as early as 1967 when Gaya Lal, who won the state Assembly election as an independent candidate in 1967, changed parties thrice in just a fortnight, first joining the Congress, then switching to the United Front, going back to the Congress and then finally defecting to the United Front. Despite widespread public outrage and angry newspaper editorials, Lal continued to switch parties over the next decade. Winning the next Assembly election in Haryana under the Akhil Bhartiya Arya Sabha, he changed to Chaudhary Charan Singh's Lok Dal in 1974 and won the seat as a Janata Party candidate in 1977 after the Lok Dal merged with the Janata Party.
Another master of defections was political leader and Chief Minister Bhajan Lal, also from Haryana, who appeared to have unlimited funds at his command. In mid-1979, he carried out a coup from within the Janata Party, toppling and replacing Chief Minister Devi Lal, a popular peasant patriarch, through defections despite the latter's drastic effort to personally guard his legislators with a gun. Amazingly, six months later, after Indira Gandhi's comeback, crushing the Janata Party, the entire Cabinet led by Bhajan Lal in Haryana switched party allegiance overnight, becoming a Congress government, with his Chief Minister's chair intact.
Evolution Of Anti-Defection Law
The first anti-defection law was brought by the Congress government led by Rajiv Gandhi in 1985. Ironically, six years earlier, it had been his brother, Sanjay Gandhi, who cynically broke the Janata Party through defections, offering a prime ministerial carrot to Home Minister Charan Singh to form a short-lived breakaway minority government. The new law banned individual defections but allowed a factional split or merger with another party if one-third of the elected party legislators broke away, protecting them from disqualification. Five years later, it was Rajiv Gandhi, now Leader of the Opposition, following the same tactics as his younger brother, who engineered defections from the ruling Janata Dal to a faction led by Chandrasekhar, installing him with outside Congress support for a brief stint in power.
In 1993, the Congress, in power as a minority government led by P. V. Narasimha Rao with the support of allies, was once again involved in an ugly scandal of compromising MPs of another party through illegal gratification. Rao, with the help of his hatchet man Buta Singh, squeaked through a no-confidence motion after securing the support of four Jharkhand Mukti Morcha Members of Parliament, including its legendary tribal leader, Shibu Soren, through alleged bribes.
While the Congress government survived and completed its full term, a case filed by the CBI in the bribery case continued, and in 2000, a special CBI court found both Buta Singh and P. V. Narasimha Rao guilty of entering into a conspiracy to bribe MPs and sentenced them to three years of rigorous imprisonment. Two years later, however, both leaders were acquitted by the Delhi High Court. Goaded by the media and public opinion, and upset at the impunity with which elected representatives were being turned into marketable commodities, the NDA government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee passed a stricter anti-defection law the following year to plug the loopholes.
The new law banned factional splits altogether, requiring dissident elected representatives to resign their seats and be elected again. However, mergers with other parties were allowed, provided two-thirds of the elected party representatives agreed to them. Finally, the 2003 legal provisions banned defectors from holding any remunerative political or ministerial posts for the remainder of their term.
Challenge To Democratic Politics
However, as we have seen over the past several years, as the BJP has spread its wings across the country, the vulnerability to outside pressure of the powerful and wealthy among elected representatives in state legislatures, Union Territory legislatures and both Houses of Parliament has eroded their integrity at an alarming pace. There appears to be a disintegration of the party structure itself, with hardly any loyalty left either to ideology or to the leader among those elected in their name. This, in turn, may well be connected to the arbitrary way candidates are chosen by the leaderships of various parties, with little value placed on genuine political commitment.
Clearly, the BJP, with its hold over various institutions supposed to be pillars of democracy, vast financial and organisational strength, as well as the outreach of the RSS, has the upper hand. Yet, the government would do well to ponder the consequences if competitive party politics grinds to a halt, hollowing out the Opposition space and leaving people seeking a better deal with no option other than mobilisation outside the electoral process.
The writer is a senior journalist.