Anti-Defection Loophole

Anti-Defection Loophole

Subject – Polity

Context – Last week, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati called for a more stringent anti-defection law amid a string of politicians switching parties ahead of the Uttar Pradesh assembly election beginning next month.

Concept –

• Paragraph 3 of the Tenth Schedule was omitted by the Constitution (91st Amendment) Act, 2003, which came into effect on January 1, 2004. Paragraph 3, as it existed prior to the amendment, protected defectors as long as one-third of the members of a political party formed a separate group.
• After the omission of paragraph 3, paragraph 4 allowed for the protection of defecting members provided two-thirds of the members of the legislative party merged with another political party.
  • Paragraph 4(1) stipulates that a member of the house will not be disqualified from his membership where his original political party merges with another political party and he claims that he and other members have become members of the other political party or a new political party is being formed by such merger.
  • However, paragraph 4(2) provides that such a merger would be deemed to have taken place only if not less than two-thirds of the members of the legislative party agreed to such a merger.
• Article 164(1B) – it stipulates that a member of the legislative assembly who is disqualified from being a member of the house under paragraph 2 of the Tenth Schedule shall also be disqualified to be a minister from the date of his disqualification till the date on which the term of his office as such a member would expire or where he contests the election to the legislative assembly before the expiry of the term of the assembly.
  • The motivation is that a fresh election allows the disqualified member to be re-elected. He then becomes a member of the assembly once again, as its term is not over and can also be appointed a minister.

To know more about Anti-Defection Law, please refer August 2021 DPN.