Changing Parties, Changing Ideologies. Does India Require An Amendment To The Anti- Defection Law?
- IJLLR Journal
- 3 hours ago
- 1 min read
Aayushmaan Thakur, O.P. Jindal Global University.
ABSTRACT
The instances of party defections are not a new phenomenon for this country. While the Anti Defection Law was introduced in the year 1985 and was amended in 2003 intending to curb the avenues of opportunistic exploitation, it failed to produce the intended outcome. Therefore, defections continued. While such acts of defection have been beneficial for individual level gains, they create a sense of un-accountability and public dis-interest in the voting system. Since the country has different political groups associating themselves to different ideologies, defections indicate that an elected legislator who was thus far associated with a particular ideology is now erratically aligned with a different ideology. As a result, the state witnesses a volatile political environment where the government commanding the parliamentary majority collapses and a new majority is formed. The actual aim of advancement of the constituency is overlooked, and electoral victory becomes the dominant objective. Though the current Anti Defection Law intends to prevent such practices but similar to every other legal framework, it exhibits structural loopholes. This paper examines such regulatory gaps of the Anti-Defection law with conclusive evidences of exploitation, and strategies to combat such practices.
