Defections will impact not only the Opp but the BJP too

There’s disintegration of the party structure itself with hardly any loyalty left in either the ideology or the leader among those elected in their name

Crucial questions about the future of Indian democracy have been raised by successive defections over just the past few months, crippling parliamentary and state legislative wings of at least three political parties—the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the Trinamul Congress (TMC) and, most recently, the Uddhav Thackeray 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 the former crossing red lines that have turned representative democracy in the country to a farce.

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 elects them. This malady, even though fast-tracked by 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. 

As a matter of fact, public controversy over political defections stretches back well beyond half a century ago. The phrase ‘Aya Ram Gaya Ram’, deriding defectors, was coined as early as 1967 when Gaya Lal, who won elections as an independent candidate in state assembly polls in 1967, changed parties thrice in just a fortnight, first joining the Congress, then switching to the United Front, going back to 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 elections 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 defection master 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.

The first anti-defection law was brought by the Congress government led by Rajiv Gandhi in 1985. Ironically, six years ago 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 PV 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 bagging 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 finished its full term, a case filed by the CBI in the bribery case carried on, and in 2000, a special CBI court found both Buta Singh and PV 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, next year, the NDA government led by Vajpayee passed a stricter anti-defection law trying to plug the holes.

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 with them. Finally, the 2003 legal provisions banned defectors from holding any remunerative political or ministerial posts for the remainder of their term.

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 rich among elected representatives in both state and union territory legislatures as well as both Houses of Parliament has eroded their integrity at alarming speed. There appears to be a disintegration of the party structure itself with hardly any loyalty left in either the ideology or 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 without much value to genuine political commitment.

Clearly, now the BJP, with its hold over various institutions supposed to be pillars of democracy, vast financial and muscle power 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, leaving no other option for people in the country wanting a better deal to seek other means of mobilisation than token elections.