Excerpted & paraphrased from articles on Lok Sabha portal & PRS Legislative Research blog:
Aaya Ram Gaya Ram was a phrase that became popular in Indian politics after a Haryana MLA Gaya Lal changed his party thrice within the same day in 1967.
In political scenario, defection is a situation when a member of a political party leaves his party and joins hands with other parties.
The anti-defection law sought to prevent such political defections which may be due to reward of office or other similar considerations.
The practice of ‘defection’ in Indian politics has always been the breeding ground of political instability and uncertainty in the country, often tending to shift the focus from ‘governance’ to ‘governments’.
In late sixties, the phenomenon of changing political party for reasons other than ideological, engulfed the Indian polity. According to the Chavan Committee Report (1969), following the Fourth General Elections, in the short period between March 1967 and February 1968, the Indian political scene was characterized by numerous instances of change of party allegiance by legislators in several States.
Out of roughly 542 cases in the entire two-decade period between the First and the Fourth General Elections, at least 438 defections occurred in these 12 months alone. Among Independents, 157 out of a total of 376 elected, joined various parties in this period. That the lure of office played a dominant part in decisions of legislators to defect was obvious from the fact that out of 210 defecting legislators of various States, 116 were included in the Councils of Ministers which they helped to form by defections.
Steps for bringing forward a legislation in India to curb the malaise of defections can be traced to a private member's resolution moved in the Fourth Lok Sabha on 11 August 1967 by Shri P. Venkatasubbaiah.
The Constitution (Fifty-second Amendment) Bill, 1985 (Anti-defection Law) was passed by the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha in January 1985 and Tenth Schedule was inserted under the leadership of the Congress-led Rajiv Gandhi Government at that time.
Rule 6 of the Tenth Schedule has given wide and absolute power to the Chairman or the Speaker of the House in deciding the cases pertaining to disqualification of members on the ground of defection. As per the Law, the Speaker's decision is final but there, however, is no time limit for him to arrive at any decision. A party can move court, but only after the Speaker has announced his decision.
Rule 2, of the anti-defection law puts the party members into a bracket of obedience to the party whip and policies, curbing the legislator’s freedom to oppose the wrong acts of the party, bad policies, leaders and bills. The political party in this sense acts as dictator for its members who are not allowed to dissent. This, in a way, violates the principle of representative democracy wherein the members are forced to obey the high command rather than the wishes of the people.
The introduction of the Tenth Schedule in the Indian Constitution was aimed at curbing political defections. Though the law has succeeded in a reasonable way but due to some of its loopholes, it has not been able to achieve the best it can.
Recent defections -
During its first term, the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS, now BRS) was able to merge the TDP legislature party by attracting 12 of its 15 MLAs who won in the 2014 polls. In its second term (2018–2023), TRS was able to attract 12 of the 18 MLAs of the Congress legislature party (CLP) in 2019. Sabitha Indra Reddy who was among the 12, was made Minister for Education. 61 MLAs, MLCs and MPs from other parties defected to the ruling TRS/BRS party in its two terms (2014-2018, 2018-2023). The Speaker is required to take a decision on the disqualification petition against an MLA within three months of defection. The High Court is supposed to dispose of such petitions as per the provisions mentioned in para 30 and 33 in the Supreme Court verdict.
ADR, a watchdog that aims to improve governance and strengthen democracy through electoral and political reforms, released a report in 2021 analysing the election affidavits of 443 MLAs and MPs who switched parties and recontested polls in between 2016 and 2020.
It showed that of the 405 MLAs who defected, 170 (42%) were from the Congress. The BJP was a distant second with 18 MLAs defecting (4.4%). The data showed that BJP was clearly the party of choice for defecting MLAs who recontested the polls. ADR said 182 (44.9%) such MLAs joined the BJP, followed by the Congress, whose ranks 38 (9.4%) defecting MLAs joined to contest the polls.
The report notes that governments in Madhya Pradesh, Manipur, Goa, Arunachal Pradesh and Karnataka fell during these five years due to the defection of MLAs.
The Congress government of Madhya Pradesh was dethroned in March 2020.
ADR found that the average growth in assets of re-contesting MPs and MLAs was Rs 5.85 crore or 39%.