Legislators slam ‘rampant’ defections, call for revisiting anti-defection law
Former vice-president and BJP veteran M Venkaiah Naidu, in his speech in the morning session, declared that the anti-defection law needed to be revisited, and legislators who wished to join another party ought to resign from their original party first
Mumbai: The issue of defection from one political party to another was centre-stage at the first National Legislators’ Conference, with a few legislators lambasting the way governments were being pulled down by defecting politicians with a naked lust for power. The three-day conference in Mumbai, which was attended by 1,500 lawmakers, 80 ministers and 30 speakers, concluded on Saturday.
Former vice-president and BJP veteran M Venkaiah Naidu, in his speech in the morning session, declared that the anti-defection law needed to be revisited, and legislators who wished to join another party ought to resign from their original party first. Two senior Congress leaders, Ashok Gehlot and Prithviraj Chavan, also slammed defection and batted for the scrapping of the law and empowering the legislature over the executive. Maharashtra chief minister Eknath Shinde, who wrought a split in the Shiv Sena last year by defecting to the BJP with a group of MLAs, was not present at the session but addressed the next one.
“Today, defection by a group is not defection but out of affection, and they are doing it with perfection,” quipped Naidu. “Sometimes, changing parties may be inevitable because of the conduct of the party leader or the party’s deviation from principles. But in that case, you must resign first. If the leader has become authoritarian, the way out is to remove him with a majority.”
Naidu added that people were disillusioned with the functioning of some legislators and legislatures. “It is the responsibility of elected representatives to improve their functioning and parties to draw up a code of conduct for their members,” he said. “Legislators should debate and discuss but not disrupt the house. Every house should have a strong opposition. The government’s role is to propose, the opposition’s is to oppose and the legislature’s role is to dispose in the interest of the people.”
Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot, while attacking the practice of horse-trading and the ‘rampant’ toppling of elected governments, said that legislators needed to be committed to their parties and ideology. “Defecting out of a lust for power sends out the wrong message to the new generation,” he said. “It should be a grave concern for the entire country because ultimately democracy will be the loser. Indian democracy has survived for 75 years because of the practice of healthy democracy. Today, there is tension between the ruling and opposition parties, which is not a good sign for democracy.”
While Naidu felt that the anti-defection law should be “revisited” and “debated”, former Maharashtra chief minister Prithviraj Chavan, who addressed the conference online, pressed for its scrapping altogether. “The law, which was conceived in 1985 and overhauled in 2003, has not worked as there are rampant defections,” he said. “Governments are pulled down and new governments brought in. There is a dire need to scrap the law and enact something that will not allow defection.”
Chavan said the idea of empowering legislatures and separation of powers, which was the original idea of the Constitution, needed to be pondered. “Today, the executive has become all-powerful, with the cabinet and bureaucracy at the disposal of the prime minister elected by the party with a majority,” he said. “Parliament has no power to legislate itself, has no role in budget-making and cannot disagree with the ruling party.”
Maharashtra governor Ramesh Bais, who was the chief guest at the concluding session of the conference, said that the state legislature should meet for more days. “A committee appointed in 2002 to review the legislative work in Parliament had suggested that legislatures with less than 70 members should meet for at least 50 days a year and the larger legislatures should conduct business of at least 90 days,” he said. “A smaller number of legislative sessions does not leave adequate time for deliberation on important business like bills. Disruption of the house on trivial issues also leads to people losing respect for elected representatives.”
Shinde, who was also at the concluding session, said that elected representatives should rise above their party lines and ideologies to work in the interest of the people and the county. Messages by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi were read out during the plenary session of the conference on Saturday.
The three-day conference was organised under the leadership of the government council of former speakers Sumitra Mahajan, Manohar Joshi, Meira Kumar and Shivraj Patil as its patrons and supported by the MIT School of Government headed by Rahul Karad. The second chapter of the NLC will be held in Goa in November 2024.
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