Mahesh Chander Sudan
We, the people of India, are witnessing a political storm that erupted in the state of Rajasthan wherein Mr. Sachin Pilot, Dy Chief Minister, along with other members of the legislature challenged existence of Congress government allegedly at the behest of opposition members of the state legislature. It is seen that such political scrambles are being staged to dislodge democratically elected governments with least respect towards collective judgement of the electorates. It has very efficiently been designed, and successfully implemented in the states of Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh in the recent times. The culmination of the ongoing political storm of Rajasthan might settle for the politicians but would certainly compel electorates to suspect their decision once again. These elected public representatives switch over their allegiance so tactfully to gain power and position in the new arrangement for their own interest at the cost of poor voters who alleviated them with electoral mandate. There are glaring examples both in Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh where these defectors have been rewarded Ministerial berths and membership of Rajya Sabha. It amounts to the fact that these politically designed moves inflict serious injury to the electoral process of our democracy.
We have republican democracy where every eligible voter is entitled to elect representative of his choice. Election Commission of India is mandated constitutionally to hold elections for Indian Union and its federations. The elections are designed to accommodate multiparty political set up that allows adequate choice for voters to exercise their mandate. It is felt that party politics guides voting trend that in bargain minimizes the scope of electing candidate on merit. Contestants are rarely elected on the basis of their academic qualification, experience or any other field achievements. Money and muscle powers make the sway. Elected candidates concentrate more on strengthening their party rather than voters and devise tactical move to capture larger share of power in the governance and the welfare of the commoners who raised them to launching pad as MLA or MP takes back seat. It is also evident that leaders shift their political affiliation from one party to another for immediate gains. This defeat the very purpose of electoral democracy where people are linked with governance through collective decision based on individual preferences. Our system does not provide for Recall Process where voters have choice to recall elected representatives for swapping political ideology through defection or for under performance, and it therefore assures them full tenure.
In order to contain instability caused by democratically elected legislators, an anti-defection law was enacted by Indian Parliament in the year 1985. Shifting of allegiance from the parties they supported at the time of election or disobeying decision of their parties at critical times such as during voting on an important resolution at times conveys symptom of political corruption. The ongoing episode of Rajasthan legislators forming a group to revolt their own party government conveys different color of political corruption where in a young party soldier has been circumstantially molded by vested interests to create perceived instability in the democratically elected government. These public representatives are elected through electoral mandate for providing effective governance in the larger interest of the voters. In the present circumstances, all elected members of the state legislature across the political spectrum are failing to perform their constitutional duty for the welfare of the state especially during pandemic.
It is seen that tactically sound moves are being made by these elected representatives to escape the provisions of law of defection and achieve desired results. Recent examples of Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and Manipur are there to quote in this regard. In nut shell it conveys that the will of the voters ultimately get compromised, mandate exercised by voters is manipulated to attain political ends by exploiting loopholes in the law of defection. This undesired trend of political manoeuvers either individually, by a group of people or by any political party to gain power through unethical methods not only hurts collective judgement of the voters but proves inimical for the state. It is in the right earnest to strengthen autonomous institutes like Election Commission of India so that these institutes function solely to achieve constitutional integrity to arrest defectors from creating instability of democratically elected governments. It is also an accepted fact that the law of defection did not fulfill the purpose of bringing halt to political defection due to inherent loopholes in the law like cases of splits and implementation of penalties. Another weak aspect of the law is the role of speaker especially in deciding cases of political defections.
In the given circumstances, leaders of party in power and in opposition should display a responsible behavior in handling defectors as it can occur to any political party and at any crucial point of time, rewarding defectors with ministerial berths or other visible benefits must be condemned across the political spectrum, a short term political benefit may not attain long term public appreciation and affiliations. Election Commission of India may ask political parties to lay well defined code of conduct for probable candidates including political defection and a strict restriction on defectors to contest election for some time be imposed to arrest the menace of political defection as it destabilizes the path of National growth and brings dishonor to sacred mandate exercised by the poor voters once in five years. No midterm poll should be held except for extreme unavoidable reasons like demise of elected representative, resignation or for any other reason justifiable in the interest of Nation. Let us elect our representatives once in five years to serve the nation for full tenure and not allow the election fever to remain throughout as it appears today as if India is in election mode day and night. Jai Hind, Jai Bharat.
The author is WgCdr (Retd)
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