What is the impact of 'Defection' on the Indian Political System? Clarify.
Ans.
Introduction:
Today, the politics of 'defection' has become an essential part of Indian politics. We see news about 'defection' in newspapers every day. Today, a person takes 'defection' normally. But it is not normal. The politics of 'defection' has become a threat to Indian democracy. Because of this, Indian politics has to face instability. No government can consider itself stable, hence its impact on the functioning and efficiency of the government is clearly visible. Recently, the anti-defection rules in the Constitution have to some extent necessarily put some control over it, but this disease has not been completely eradicated.
Defection politics flourished in India after the fourth general elections in 1967. It reached its peak after this election. As a result of defection in 1968, many state governments in India collapsed, many were formed and President's rule was imposed in many provinces. Between March 1967 and December 1970, out of 4000 legislators, 1400 legislators defected. The maximum defections happened in Congress. Independent Party, United Socialist Party, Praja Socialist Party, and regional parties came after that. Defection was very low in Kerala, Madras, Orissa, Jammu, and Kashmir, but very high in other states and union territories. Almost every month, a government used to fall in one state due to defection.
The situation became somewhat stable after the 1971 general election as the Congress got a huge majority in this election. Whatever defection happened between 1971 and 1976, happened in favor of the Congress. On February 2, 1977, on the occasion of the sixth general elections, Cabinet Minister Jagjivan Ram resigned from the Congress and the cabinet. Along with them, leaders like H.N. Bahuguna, Nandini Satpathy, D.N. Tiwari, Mangal Pandey etc. also resigned and formed the 'Congress for Democracy'. In those days, many Congress ministers, parliament members, and legislators left the Congress and joined the Congress for Democracy or the Janata Party. In those days, some of the other big leaders started leaving the Congress to join the Janata Party. At that time, the General Secretary of the Congress Party, Shri Pant criticized the defection policy of the Janata Party and said, "The manner in which the Janta Party was encouraging defections in the Rajya Sabha and elsewhere in the country was generating a sense of deep disquiet."
The Janata Party government formed at the center in 1977 and the Janata Dal government formed at the center in 1989 had to be removed from power due to defection which plunged Indian politics into a deep political crisis. Due to defection, many state governments have to resign every day, hence it greatly impacts the development of states. This politics of defection that is there in India happens not out of loyalty but opportunism, which has created a serious threat to the Indian political system.
In short, the political impacts of defection are:
1. Political Instability-
The most important impact of defection is political instability. After the fourth general elections, instability arose in the governments of Punjab, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, and West Bengal and the President's rule had to be imposed in these provinces. Many cabinets were formed and fell in these provinces within two years. In July 1979, Prime Minister Morarji Desai had to resign due to defection. This was the first occasion in the history of central government when a Prime Minister had to resign due to defection. In 1990 too, the V.P. Singh government of Janata Dal had to see defection within the Janata Dal. In February 1980, the Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh, Shanta Kumar had to resign due to defection, and a Congress (I) government was established there instead of the Janata government. In 1991, in Uttar Pradesh, the Governor had to recommend fresh elections due to defection in the Mulayam government. In Haryana too, due to defection, Chautala had to go and the President's rule had to be imposed there. Thus due to defection, a state of political instability has come about in India.
2. Decline in moral values-
Because of defection, legislators and parties have started forgetting their responsibilities. A serious problem of maintaining their political existence has arisen before every party, hence no party cares about moral values.
3. Rise of small parties-
Defection has also encouraged the division of political parties. Some legislators break away and form their own party and then bargain with the parent party. For example, Chaudhary Charan Singh formed the Indian Kranti Dal, and Kumbharam Arya formed the Janata Party in Rajasthan. Rao Virendra Singh formed the Vishal Haryana Party in Haryana. Ajay Mukherjee formed the Bangla Congress. Shri Chandrashekhar and Devi Lal formed the Samajwadi Janata Dal and Chiman Bhai Patel formed the Gujarat Janata Dal etc.
4. Decline in the moral standards of Legislators-
Defection has made the legislators selfish and dishonest. The tendency of bargaining among legislators is increasing day by day. When a legislator benefits from defecting, another legislator also becomes eager to defect so as to gain more benefits.
5. Unnecessary expansion of Cabinets-
The tendency to unnecessarily expand cabinets has increased. Before 1967, cabinets used to be small, but after the fourth general elections, cabinets were expanded to satisfy the maximum number of legislators. Bihar had included 75 members in its cabinet.
6. Neglect of Public Welfare-
Because of defection, every minister remains busy in politics to save his position due to which the minister is not able to pay attention to governance. Policies are not implemented properly. The public has to suffer the consequences of this mismanagement.
7. Blow to Democratic Beliefs-
The democratic beliefs of the public have been deeply shocked. The public's faith in their representatives and leaders has started declining. The public thinks that how will selfish legislators work for the benefit of the public?
8. Decline in Prestige Abroad-
Defection has made India's political situation so unstable that it damages India's respect abroad. Due to the absence of a strong and stable government at the center today, our voice is not heard on the world stage and no major nation pays heed to our words which delivers a severe blow to national honor and prestige. There are 39 regional and national parties in India today.
Thus we see that the politics of defection has emerged as a serious challenge to the Indian political system. Defection has forced Indian political thinkers to pay special attention to it. Any lover of Indian democracy and well-wisher of the nation wants the eradication of this disease of defection as soon as possible.
Proposals to Solve the Problem:
Seeing the terrible and dangerous consequences of defection, leaders of all parties and scholars felt that it should be stopped as soon as possible. Former Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Shri S.P. Sen Verma, while emphasizing stopping the tendency of defection, had said that "if this tendency continues, the election will become a joke." He said that to stop it, there should be an agreement on this within the political parties and the desire to implement it through strict discipline. Former Governor of Bihar Ananthasayanam Ayyangar appealed to political parties not to induct a person coming from another party into their party.
Former Chief Justice of India P.B. Gajendra Gadkar said that defection is completely destructive to democracy's moral foundations. Those who are playing this game do not understand how deeply it has hurt the common citizens of this country and how dangerous it is for the future of democracy. He suggested that a legislator who defects should resign and contest the election again. In the October 1967 meeting of Speakers of Legislative Assemblies and Lok Sabha, this problem was discussed. They stressed the need for a code of ethics to stop it. They also said that it is futile to stop it through legal and constitutional means. In 1967, Congress President Nijalingappa said that healthy conventions are needed more than legal constraints to stop defection.
In August 1968, Congress member P. Venkatasubbaiah presented a non-official resolution in the Lok Sabha. The purpose of this proposal was to appoint a committee to consider the problem of defection. The resolution was passed on December 8, 1968.
According to this resolution, the government constituted a committee. Home Minister Chavan was appointed Chairman of this committee. Apart from the Central Law Minister and Parliamentary Affairs Minister, the committee included the Attorney General, public leaders, and representatives of eight recognized political parties and three independent groups in the Lok Sabha. There were 19 members in this committee.
The report of this committee was presented in Parliament on January 18, 1969, which mainly made the following recommendations:
- Need for a code of conduct for political parties.
- Understanding the nature of representation and duties of representatives.
- Prohibition on appointing a person who is not a member of Lok Sabha as Prime Minister.
- Ban on making defectors ministers.
- Defectors should resign and contest the election again.
- The Legislative Assembly can be dissolved by the Council of Ministers.
- Limit the size of the cabinet.
- Recall of legislators.
Apart from these suggestions, many other proposals were placed before the committee on which the members could not agree.
It is noteworthy here that the members of the committee did not agree on the more important suggestions and the government did not take any steps for four years to implement those suggestions on which there was agreement. Finally, on May 16, 1973, Home Minister Umashankar Dixit introduced an amendment bill in the Lok Sabha to stop defection. This bill was called the '32nd Constitution Amendment Bill, of 1973'.
According to this amendment bill, if a member of a state legislative assembly or parliament voluntarily leaves the party on whose ticket he was elected, or if he violates the direction of the party or authorized person or votes against the direction of the party or authorized person in the House without prior permission, then his membership of the state legislative assembly or parliament will cease, but if there is a formal split in a party and a member joins one faction instead of the other, then the question of cessation of membership will be finalized by the decision of the President or Governor, but the President or Governor cannot consider the question of cessation of membership unless the concerned party or authorized person asks them to do so. This bill stated that the Prime Minister and Chief Ministers of states should be from the Lower House.
According to the former Chairman of the Union Public Service Commission, R.C. Sarkar, the purpose of this constitutional amendment bill was to terminate the membership of defecting legislators and to give a new role to political parties. But this bill was heavily criticized.
R.C. Sarkar criticized this bill on the following grounds:
- (a) It is against fundamental rights.
- (b) It is the dictatorship of political parties
- (c) It is illegal, and
- (d) It is unjust.
R.C. Sarkar gave the following three suggestions to stop defection:
- Non-political parties should make a code of conduct and also make arrangements to implement the code of conduct.
- Defectors should not be made minister, speaker, deputy speaker, etc.
- The number of ministers should be limited.
Nothing was done on the 32nd Amendment Bill for almost 8 months and in the 1973 winter session it was referred to a Select Committee, and finally no decision was taken on this bill.
Janta Party Government's move to stop Defection:
Janta Party leaders, most of whom sat on opposition benches and were also aware of the dangerous consequences of the politics of defection, were committed to stopping defection. After coming to power, the Janata government discussed stopping defection many times with opposition party leaders who were committed to bringing in an anti-defection bill. After preparation of 15 months, the Janata government introduced the 48th Constitutional Amendment Bill in the Lok Sabha on August 28, 1978, to stop defection, but this bill did not even last a few hours. After almost two and a half hours of uproar on the defection bill, the government had to withdraw its bill even before it could be reintroduced.
The 48th anti-defection amendment bill stated that if any member of parliament or legislative assembly voluntarily leaves the party on whose ticket he was elected and joins any other party, he will cease to be a member of parliament or legislative assembly. The idea behind this statement is that when any member leaves his party to join another party, there is some vested interest behind it rather than genuine ideological differences, but the bill did not have any provision to determine whether the member is defecting due to ideological differences or due to personal interest.
An important premise of the defection was that even the member who is expelled from his party for indiscipline is a defector. In other words, if a member vote against the party's decision on a particular issue in the House or violates the party's order and is therefore expelled from the party within 30 days, he will lose his membership, but if the member had taken permission from the party leadership before voting against, then he will not get such punishment, i.e. he will not be expelled from the party nor will he be called a defector.
The third important provision in defection was to distinguish defection from divisions of parties. This means that if a political party breaks up, then this fact will not be considered as defection, but for the division to be recognized as valid, it is necessary that at least 25 percent or five members, whichever is less, of a recognized political party break away together from the parent party at the same time. If fewer members try to break away and form a new party, then all of them will be declared defectors and according to the bill they will have to resign their membership.
The fourth provision in defection was regarding independent members. Independent members would be considered members of that party which they joined after being elected.
When the bill was reintroduced, opposition and independent members who were opposing the bill made it clear that we are not against putting a stop to defection, but are against the provisions of this bill.
The Janata government failed to make any law to stop defection and the Janata government itself had to go due to defection, but in September 1979, the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly passed a bill to stop defection. According to this law, if any member of the Legislative Assembly leaves the party on whose ticket he was elected, he will cease to be a member of the Legislative Assembly. As per the anti-defection law, if a member votes against the decision taken by the party on any subject in the House violates the party's order, or remains absent without prior permission, his membership will cease.
In May 1982, the then Chief Election Commissioner Shyam Lal Shakdher suggested that to stop defection, the membership of legislators defecting after being elected and also changing independent status should be automatically terminated.
On January 24, 1985, the then Law Minister introduced the controversial Defection Bill. According to this bill, the elected member of parliament or legislature will lose membership if he voluntarily leaves the party or votes against the party directive in the House. Independent members will lose membership if they join any political party. A nominated member who is not a member of any political party at the time of nomination will have the freedom to join any political party within six months. If he joins any party after six months, he will lose membership.
The bill has a provision that if one-third of members of a parliamentary party or legislative party voluntarily leave their political party or defy the directive of the parent party and vote, their membership will not cease. Similarly, if there is a merger of one political party into another or two parties merge to form a new party, the disqualification provision will not apply to them.
The bill also provides that if the question of disqualification of a member arises, the decision of the Speaker or Chairman will be final. The termination of membership of any member cannot be challenged in any court once the decision to terminate membership has been taken. The Lok Sabha passed it on January 30, 1985. The Rajya Sabha passed it on January 31, 1985. The President gave his assent on February 15, 1985. Now it became the 52nd Constitutional Amendment. With this amendment, a legal restriction was imposed on 'defection'. This gave rise to the expectation that a stop would be put on 'defection', but the split in the Janata Dal at the center, as well as in Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh, led to the fall of governments or change in governments or fresh elections having to be conducted, proved people's expectations wrong. In Bihar too, there was a split in the Bharatiya Janata Party in which 13 out of elected legislators broke away to form a new party. Differences arose among parties over the status of these members and fingers were raised on the decisions of the Legislative Assembly Speaker and the Lok Sabha Speaker, but still, the implementation of anti-defection rules has definitely put some control on defection to an extent, which is a good thing for Indian politics.